


Spellbound

by alichicookie



Category: Block B, EXO (Band), Mamamoo, SEVENTEEN (Band), VIXX, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst, Blood, Demons, F/F, Fluff, M/M, Mermaids, Smut, Sorcerers, Vampires, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-09-23 20:57:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9676637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alichicookie/pseuds/alichicookie
Summary: Jungkook and his friends didn't have the faintest idea of what they were dealing with. Too bad it was too late to walk away when they realized it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! So, I decided to make a kpop multi-fandom fanfiction because I love suffering ahahah. As I upgrade the chapters, I will add characters and relationships tags. I hope you enjoy it!

_The smell of sweat and arousal could be sensed in the dark room. The shuddering breaths of the couple, and the sound of flesh against flesh was the only thing that could be heard. There was a full moon outside, but they had closed the curtains and lowered the blinds, as if they were too ashamed of what they were doing that not even the moon should be able to see it. It was being pretty intense, and they were just getting started._

_The boy could feel his aching cock twitching as he left sloppy kisses on the girl’s body: her neck, her petite breasts, her abdomen… He finally gazed at her slit and touched it. He tried not to smirk, for she was already wet, and failed miserably. He knew he had failed because he heard her heartbeat speed up and saw her blood coloring her cheeks. Ashamed, she buried her face in her long, blonde hair._

_“Hurry up already!” she said breathy, demanding. She didn’t need to say it twice. The young man complied, sliding inside her in a swift move. Both of them whined. Then, slowly but steadily, he started to pace a rhythm. She clawed her hands at his back, begging for deeper, more speed, just_ more _. He leaned his forehead into hers, and looked at her glassy eyes._

_“Please let me take you,” he whispered without stopping thrusting into her. He saw the confusion in her eyes. “Let me bite you,” he murmured in almost a plea. The young woman closed her eyes, lips parted._

_“Yes, yes,” she breathed, “just please—”. As a sign of what she wanted to say but couldn’t, she sunk her nails deeper into his skin, and he started to move faster and harder. He nosed the nape of her neck, and nibbled at her earlobe quite hard. That seemed to have a great effect on her, because not long after that, she reached her climax, and that made her tremble. Not able to endure it anymore, the man let his fangs slid out and sink into the soft, pale flesh of her pulse point. The girl let out a small cry. He could feel the fear, the panic, the horror of his lover. But she was still riding out her orgasm, so she wasn’t able to move or pull away. She was too weak. Then, he started to suck. Hard._

_Suddenly, the room acquired a much more dreadful atmosphere. The soft sounds full of life that could be heard before now were substituted by the weakening heartbeat of the young woman and the avid gulping that came from the boy’s throat. Brown mane buried in a cascade of blonde, pupils dilated, he clutched the girl’s arms harder while he lost himself in the lust and the hunger, drawing out all her blood. He pulled away for a moment, panting, his lips and jawline smeared in a bloody mess, and then he continued sucking, thrusting a couple more times to finally come. He moaned, hugging the girl closer and biting harder, till the point where he snapped her neck._

_In the end, he collapsed on the mattress, spending a couple of minutes gasping for air that he really didn’t need. After that, when everything turned silent, he propped himself on his elbows and observed the room. There was no heartbeat to be heard now. He saw the blood stains on his chest, on the sheets, and then he observed his lover’s frail, pale body: empty gaze, blond curls tinted in red. He sighed, tired. Even though the room was entirely dark, he could feel the sun rising on the outside. The brunet curled up against the corpse’s chest, and closed his eyes. He wanted to cry. But he felt too empty inside to do that._

* * *

Yoongi groaned.

“Why,” he said for the nth time raising his head to look desperately at the ceiling. Namjoon snickered from the corner of the room. Seokjin grunted.

“Yoongi, stop whining and stop moving or I swear to god I’ll curse you,” said the older boy without stopping writing runes on the pale boy’s back. Of course, Yoongi complied, as usual.

That was something that had always fascinated Namjoon. Yoongi didn’t take orders from anyone, except from Seokjin. And he had always wondered why that was. It certainly wasn’t because Seokjin was a sorcerer ( _or soon-to-be sorcerer, whatever_ ), because Yoongi knew tons of those and he didn’t give a shit about them or what they could do to him. And that made Namjoon a little envious of the privilege Seokjin had. He wished that Yoongi listened to him sometime, especially when they were out on the field, but that was something quite impossible to ask. Yoongi hated being told what to do ( _like he didn’t know how to do his job, tch_ ), and he was already struggling quite a lot with what they were having at hands right now. But oh boy, was it funny.

“Seriously, remind me again why I am doing this,” said Yoongi through gritted teeth. Maybe he had sensed the smile that was threatening to appear on Namjoon’s face.

“Okay, uh, the thing is into blondes only.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“Yeah, well… Your hair is bleached.”

“Jesus fuck, yours is too, Namjoon!”

“And you know I’ve been acting as bait for a week and a half and we’ve come up with our hands empty.”

“Okay, but why do I have to go fishing like _this_? I bet that if I go just like you, I’ll catch it. I have more possibilities than you. Because let’s be honest here, your face doesn’t exactly attract people,” Yoongi spat. Seokjin moved to keep writing runes on the boy’s chest, smiling to himself when he heard his best friend gasp, grabbing his chest, offended.

“How dare you,” he whispered squinting at his partner. “It’s bad to say it myself, but I _am_ quite handsome, thank you very much.” The pale boy scoffed.

“Are you serious,” he said. “Have you seen your face? It looks like a wasp stung your lips.” The soon-to-be sorcerer stopped writing to direct a deadpan glare at Yoongi. “Oh, no, hyung, your lips are pretty,” said the hunter almost instantly. Seokjin opted to ignore him to finish the goddamn charm on his body, puffing to get his brown bangs away from his eyes. Namjoon kept squinting at him, unbelieving.

“Well, anyway, it doesn’t matter, you know that we’ll have more chances if you go like that,” he said amusingly.

“Ugh.” Yoongi knew. The bastard couldn’t be just plain gay, no. It had to be bi, with a high interest in the opposite sex. But _still_. “Can’t we ask one of your classmates, Seokjin? If it’s just because the majority of his victims are women, then I bet you know a girl or two—”

“You know that witches don’t involve themselves in hunts. Especially freelance hunts,” the older interrupted.

“Besides, would you really risk the life of an indefense and unexperienced woman like that?” Namjoon added.

“Then why don’t you do this, if you’re so ‘beautiful’ yourself?” Yoongi almost growled. Namjoon approached him with a languid smile.

“Because my legs are not as pretty as yours,” he mocked. That was it. Yoongi kicked his knee. “Ow!”

“You deserved that,” Seokjin said without looking. Right after that, he stood up, sighing. “Okay, I’m done. I hope it works.”

“You _hope_?” the pale boy said alarmed. “Please tell me you’ve done this before.”

“Of course I did! We had to practice it last week on a classmate. We did it on Hakyeon, and it turned out great. It’s just… Jaehwan did most of the work,” the sorcerer confessed biting his lip.

“Bah, stop questioning your power; I’m sure it’s okay! Let’s test it out… Come on, Yoongi, put on these.”

“I hate you both so much,” he muttered while changing clothes and facing his friends afterwards. “Okay, so how does this charm work? Is it the type where you have to say some keywords or…”

“Oh, no, you just have to, like, activate it.”

“Okay,” the boy sighed, closed his eyes and took a deep breath, relaxing every little bit of his body. And then, he let the energy flow: from the pit of his stomach to his fingerprints. He felt the runes changing his body in some kind of weird way, but not really changing anything. After a while, he ventured to open his eyes, just to see his two friends staring at him wide-eyed.

“Holy shit,” mumbled Namjoon.

“Well?” right after saying that, Yoongi noticed that his throat felt funny. Namjoon started to laugh his ass off.

“Oh my god, you really pull it off!” the blonde exclaimed, bending over with laughter until he finally fell on the floor. Seokjin was just staring at him.

“Yep, I definitely did it right,” he finally said. Namjoon kept laughing for another couple of minutes, and Yoongi just stared at both of them, despiteful.

“This is not gonna end well,” he muttered in the end.

“Oh, come on, don’t say that,” Seokjin tried to console him rubbing a hand on his back, while Namjoon wheezed and tried to get up.

“No, at the end of the night you’re gonna end up dead.”

“Uh, Yoongi, you’re the one being the bait.”

“Oh, no, I mean that I’m gonna kill you both when all of this ends,” he said somber.

Seokjin just gave him an apologetic smile, while Namjoon snorted. The latter started filling their backpacks for everything they would need for the hunt, putting extra stakes. He always put extra stakes. Meanwhile, Yoongi deactivated the runes and Seokjin gathered all the gadgets that he had used for the charm.

“Well, guys, I’m heading for school… Tell me how everything goes, okay?”

“Okay… Hey, have you seen the brat?” Yoongi asked him while he changed clothes.

“Um, no. I haven’t seen him since yesterday, actually.”

“Where is he?” said the pale hunter exasperated.

“I’m sure the kid’s just hitting the streets or near the uni, don’t mind him” Namjoon said distracted while packing.

“Well, as long as he’s not in that goddamned bar…” That made Namjoon raise his head and stare at his partner.

“I thought Seokjin was the mother of the group,” he deadpanned.

“Hey!” the sorcerer exclaimed, offended by the nickname.

“What, can’t I worry about the little shit?” Yoongi asked.

None of them answered. Because really, they couldn’t blame him. Not worrying about that boy was something really difficult to do.

* * *

Jungkook was flying. Everything around him became a blur as he skated his way through campus to get to the humanities building on time. He couldn’t believe he fell asleep, and he thanked the gods that he listened yesterday to Chan and Sanghyuk at the freshers’ party and didn’t drink more. He couldn’t imagine how the people with a hangover were handling everything right now. But even without being hungover, Jungkook was still half-asleep, and not alert enough. Therefore, it didn’t take long until he collapsed with another person on the way. That other person was a guy, around his age, maybe even older. His hair was ginger, and he was wearing a black tank top, a pair of black leather pants adorned with some chains and some heavy boots. He also was wearing a red scarf and bracelets that covered both his wrists. Jungkook thought he looked like a fuckboy.

“Ow!” the fuckboy whined while grabbing his head. He had a scrap on his forehead. “Can’t you see where you’re going?”

“My bad,” Jungkook muttered while he got up.

“’My bad’? That’s your apology? What, you think because you’re a boy with a pretty face you can do whatever the hell you want?” That got him flustered. He managed to get his skate, mumbling a _‘sorry, late for class’_ and got off. “Hey! Pretty boy! I’m gonna sue you for this!” he heard the ginger shout. What the fuck. Everyone around him stared, and if Jungkook could die from embarrassment, he would in that exact moment.

He reached the building on time, and got inside the class. Fortunately, the professor was also late, and not so many students got there, so he was good. He decided to sit at the left back, next to a boy who was dozing off. He took out his notes, and when he saw that it was too dark to properly read them, he decided to raise the blind, earning a groan from the young man next to him.

“Too bright.”

“Oh, sorry,” he said, lowering the blind a bit. “Hangover?”

“Who isn’t,” the boy grumbled. “Why aren’t you?”

Jungkook shrugged. “Lucky, I guess.”

That made the boy squint at him through his brown bangs, despising him, before turning his head and dozing off again. Jungkook decided to read a bit until the professor came, observing from time to time the students who came through the door. At one of those times, he saw a really pretty girl come into the class, and he found himself staring. He would’ve been mortified, but really, more than half of the class was staring at her, including his desk partner, who suddenly looked pretty awake.

The girl didn’t seem to notice that. She was scanning the room, keeping her blonde bangs behind her ears. Jungkook got the feeling that her eyes lingered a second longer in his direction, until she decided to sit on the front. Then, he realized that he had been holding his breath, and the professor came into the class.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Seokjin was almost out of breath when he arrived at the doors of the school of magic. He wasn’t exactly late, but he liked to arrive with spare time anyways. As always, he looked for the bunch of people who were blocking the entrance to locate his friend.

“Jaehwan!”

The aforementioned was blowing kisses to said crowd, and when he heard his name, he turned his head and smiled at Seokjin.

“Hey! You’re… not early.” Seokjin approached him, and Jaehwan turned around again to look at the bunch of people (most of them women). “Well, I have to go! Goodbye, my babies!” After saying this, he kept blowing kisses at them, earning a few squeals.

Once they were a few steps away, the younger scoffed while he stared at his partner, who was still waving at people, smiling.

“You do realize that some of them are your upperclassmen, right?”

“Excuse me,” replied Jaehwan, directing a serious look at him, “all of my fans are my babies, regardless of their age.”

Seokjin snorted. “Alright.”

“Anyway, what made you come at this hour?”

“Oh, right. I had to make a gender spell for Namjoon and Yoongi. It seems they’re hunting down a rather particular vampire.”

“Really? Did you get to do it by yourself?”

“Yeah, I pulled it off pretty good. But I’m worried about how much time it’s gonna last… How long lasted Hakyeon’s?”

“Oh, he still can use it. At least enough time to get Taekwoon’s attention and turn him on… Ugh.”

“Um, _what_?”

“Ah, didn’t I tell you? That day we made the spell I asked Hakyeon to wear it for as long as he could, just to see how much it could last. He was mortified by it, really. But then we arrived home and Taekwoon _saw_ him. I swear to god I’ve never seen someone eye-fucking a person so hard in my life.”

“Oh my god!” cackled Seokjin.

“Of course Hakyeon noticed it and he’s been using that since then to seduce him all week. Seriously, they’re so disgusting. Never live with a horny couple, Seokjin.”

Seokjin chuckled.

“Oh, come on, don’t be mean! They’re just a healthy normal couple… That have a couple of kinks,” Jaehwan snorted. “Anyway, at least it’s better to live with that than with sexual tension.”

“Jesus, you’re still like that?”

“Yeah, I mean, whenever I’m in the room with those two I feel like I could cut the tension with a knife. And apart from that there’s also the fact that the kid is like a sack of hormones.”

“Yikes. Lucky me I live with Mr. and Mrs. Kinky, then.”

“Believe me, you have no idea.”

“Well,” said Jaehwan while they entered the main building. He waved at their friend Yixing, who was nearby, “maybe you could suffer less if you got a couple. You’d be more distracted that way,” he smirked when he saw the other blush.

“Oh, shut up. You can’t tell me that when you’re going through the same. We’ll talk when you get a couple yourself, eh?”

“Hmpf. My babies are the only distraction I need, thank you very much.”

“Ew, and you say Hakyeon is the disgusting one!” Seokjin laughed and shoved him.

“May I ask why I am ‘disgusting’?”

The sudden voice of Hakyeon behind their backs made Seokjin jump and screech. Jaehwan laughed, somewhat relieved that there was another person with them.

* * *

“Kookie! Over here!” Sanghyuk yelled.

The boy gazed around the campus until he saw his friends with other boys sitting in the stairs of the science building, enjoying the sun. He jogged towards them.

“ _Kookie_?” Chan snorted.

“Okay, first, fuck off. And Sanghyuk, I told you a thousand times to stop calling me that!”

“Wow, the man has a temper,” the boy who sat next to Chan chuckled. Jungkook just squinted at him.

“Oh, sorry,” Chan said sheepishly, “these are my friends.”

He introduced them. The boy sitting next to him was Soonyoung. He wasn’t very tall, and even though he had a kind smile, Jungkook swore that he could see a glint of mischief in his eyes. Next to him was Minghao: slender, thin face, big eyes and really fluffy hair. He seemed nice. Sitting on a step above was Jisoo, whose corners of the mouth were upwards, and had very gentle eyes. Jungkook thought that maybe he was a very formal person, given that he was the only one in the group wearing a long neck shirt. And finally, resting under the shadow in the top step of the stairs, were Wonwoo and Mingyu. Wonwoo had a slightly long face, and right in that moment Jungkook thought that he looked grumpy and tired, but he couldn’t really tell. He was resting his head on Mingyu’s lap, who was probably the tallest of the group and had a strong jawline. He was really different from Wonwoo, for he had a kind of goofy air, and in spite of that, Jungkook didn’t need to ask Chan to know for certain that they were more than friends: they had an aura of intimacy between them that it was hard to ignore.

“Well, how was professor Jang’s class?” Jisoo asked.

“Uh…”

“Pft, well, I sure as hell ain’t gonna ask Jungkook for notes,” Sanghyuk responded.

“Hey! Why not?” He felt kind of offended.

“Yeah, why not? Jungkook’s notes always save our asses, man.”

“Yes, Chan, I know… But he didn’t take any. He spent all the time of the class staring at the new girl,” he said with a smirk. Jungkook could feel a blush spreading through his cheeks as the rest of the group laughed.

“No I wasn’t!”

“Oh, bullshit. But hey, I don’t blame you; there were a lot of people staring.”

“Oh my god,” he whined as he sat next to Sanghyuk and covered his face.

“How pretty is she?” Minghao chuckled.

“You have no idea. I think part of it is because she’s half-foreign? Her hair is ash blonde, I think.”

“Can we please change the subject,” Jungkook muttered behind his hands.

“No way,” Soonyoung replied with and amused expression.

“Yeah,” added Mingyu while he petted Wonwoo’s hair, “I mean, we could help you to woo her or something.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, _no_.”

“Hey! Didn’t your parents teach you the ten commandments?” Jisoo suddenly exclaimed.

“Uh… What?”

“ _Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain_!”

“Ugh. Excuse him, Jungkook, he’s just a freak who has read the Bible too many times.”

“Shut up, Wonwoo. You haven’t read it even once. Think about how that has affected your life, huh?”

Wonwoo just flipped him off, and Jisoo gasped, indignant.

“Anyway,” Sanghyuk cleared his throat, “I don’t think he has any possibilities.”

“Why is that?” Minghao asked as Jungkook raised his head to stare at his friend.

“Jungkook, didn’t you notice your desk mate?”

“You mean the hangover guy? Not really. I mean, we didn’t even introduce ourselves.”

“Well then, two things: one, he’s hot as fuck, like, I’d hit that. Two, he was looking at her like he wanted to _ravish_ her right there in class.”

“Huh, poor Kookie,” Chan murmured.

Before Jungkook could hit him, they saw someone running towards them. Perhaps a senior, he thought.

“Jisoo!” the senior yelled.

“Junmyeon? What are you doing here?” Jisoo asked at the same time he got up.

He stopped to catch his breath, panting, before he could speak again.

“It’s Minseok… He wants to try _that_ … Again.”

“ _Shit_.” Half of the group startled when he swore. Okay, Jungkook thought, so he wasn’t the kind of person who swore frequently. Duly noted. “Um, guys, I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Okay, see you,” Mingyu waved.

Once he was gone, Chan stared at his friends. “What was all that about?”

“Dunno, man, I think it was something about his friends of that school for gifted children or whatever,” Minghao said.

“Yeah, dude,” Wonwoo yawned, “don’t give it too much importance.”

“Hey Sanghyuk,” interrupted Mingyu while he pointed at someone, “is that the girl you were talking about?”

All of them looked at that direction, and sure enough, there she was, in the entrance of the humanities building. Jungkook noticed that she was talking with his desk mate, who was wearing sunglasses. _He must’ve a hell of a hangover_ , he thought. When Soonyoung saw him, he suddenly tensed, grabbing his bag, and he was about to get up when Mingyu spoke.

“Soonyoung, no.”

“But—”

“ _Soonyoung_.” Wonwoo raised his voice.

“What!? Do you want me to sit still while there’s someone like that in front of me!?”

“I’m behind you and you haven’t done anything,” Wonwoo spat.

“You’re different,” he replied through gritted teeth.

“I’m different!? Ha! That’s a good one. And what about him? What do you know about his life, huh? For fuck’s sake, stop judging everyone for once in your bloody life.”

Soonyoung seemed hurt for a moment before he lowered his gaze. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Guys, please, drop it. Soonyoung, you can’t do anything, we’re in the middle of campus, okay?” Mingyu said with a soothing tone.

Soonyoung just got up and started walking away. At this, Minghao expressed the general sentiment of the group, excluding Mingyu and Wonwoo. “What the fuck.” He then got up and followed his friend, calling his name.

“Um, guys… I think you should go talk to him and apologize, whatever it is you were talking about…” mumbled Chan.

“Apologize? Me? For what?” Wonwoo was already closing his eyes again, his arms crossed in a defensive way.

“Dude, even I could see that you were rude as fuck,” Sanghyuk commented.

“I was _not_.”

“Yes, you were.” Mingyu sighed. “Come on, get up, let’s go talk to him.”

Wonwoo groaned. “Can’t I sleep for five minutes?”

“If you wanted your sleep so much then you wouldn’t bother to have a social life. Now, come on!” Mingyu pulled his still groaning boyfriend up, taking his hand and guiding him while Wonwoo grumpily put his hood up.

Jungkook didn’t have the slightest idea why suddenly everyone was so upset upon seeing his desk mate, but looking once again in his direction, he thought he could understand why. He was still talking to the girl, who seemed to be laughing at something. Or rather than talking, they looked like they were flirting. He felt nauseous all of a sudden. He didn’t understand why Sanghyuk said that the guy had anything especial. Seeing him up close, he couldn’t find any other word to describe him than _ordinary_. Just another pretentious asshole.

* * *

He got home in the afternoon just to change his clothes (his pants were ruined after what happened in the morning) and put on some make up for work. He was busying himself with the eyeliner in the bathroom when he heard someone enter the apartment.

“Joonie?” It was Yoongi.

“Sorry, your ‘Joonie’ is not here.”

“Brat?”

He heard him approaching the bathroom. He sighed. “You know—” he said while placing the eyeliner on the shelf again, “—that I have an actual name, right?”

Yoongi opted to ignore that. As always. “What the fuck!? We haven’t seen you since yesterday! Where have you been?” He got closer while the younger finished his make-up.

“Oh, you know the answer already, and you don’t like it. Why bother saying it?”

“Ugh… Hey, look at me for a moment,” the older said. The boy turned around and got startled when Yoongi suddenly grabbed his face and, with a concentrated look, started caressing his forehead. “Who did this to you?”

He was confused for a moment until he realized what the hunter was talking about. “Ah! You mean the scratch?” he laughed it off, and with a playful smile, he put his arms around Yoongi’s neck, slowly closing the distance they had. “Why? Are you worried about me?”

“Jimin,” the blonde warned, serious.

He wasn’t even flustered by it. Jimin scoffed, undid the embrace and started to look at himself in the mirror to touch up his hair. “You’re a spoilsport.”

“And you didn’t answer my question. Who hurt you?”

“Oh my god, it’s not what you think. Some boy ran over me with his skateboard this morning. A very cute boy, by the way. He was distracted. It was an accident. Okay?”

“So… You haven’t been to that place?”

“Nope. Just hanging out with friends. Well, I’m going now anyways,” he mentioned while exiting the bathroom.

“Jimin!”

He turned around, exasperated. “What?”

“I can’t fucking believe you. That’s why you were putting on make-up?”

The ginger stared at him. “Said the man who’s wearing pink lipstick right now.”

Yoongi had completely forgotten about that. Flustered, he rubbed it off with the sleeve of his shirt, while Jimin laughed.

“You know, you should wear it more often. It looks cute on you.”

“Fuck off, I was acting as bait today.”

“Really? Gosh, I would’ve paid to see you flirt with whoever you’re targeting,” he chuckled. “Anyway, you wear make-up because of work? Guess what.” He faked a gasp, as if he was actually surprised. “Me too!”

“Not funny.”

“Yeah, well, I’m late. See you around.”

Before he could leave, Yoongi grabbed his wrist. “Chimchim,” he whispered. “Can’t you just look for another job?” He sounded pained.

“But I like my job,” he muttered back, like he was trying to reason with a child.

“How can you? How can you like working for those… those monsters?”

“They’re not monsters, Yoongi.”

“Yes, they are!”

“No, they’re not! Most of them didn’t choose that life! And I’m sorry that your ideas of them consist on hatred and on hunting them down, but mine aren’t!”

He hurried to the door of the apartment, but Yoongi called his name once more with a strained voice. He turned around for the last time to stare at the blonde, and he spoke. “Have you ever wondered what would you do if one of your friends became one of them? Like Seokjin, or even worse, Namjoon? Would you kill them, too? Would you kill _me_?” When he saw Yoongi open his eyes wide with a shocked expression on his face, he scoffed. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. See ya.” He left without looking back.

He was in a gloomy mood all the way to work, until he arrived at the entrance of the bar and met with his coworker Yongsun. She was grabbing her wrist with a red scarf ( _clever_ ), and seemed a little sleepy.

“Hey, noona! Leaving already?”

“Oh, hi, Jimin! Yes, I finished my shift a little early. You see, I have a date,” she said with a cheeky smile.

“Huh. Girlfriend?”

“She’s not my girlfriend...! Yet,” she muttered with a blush on her cheeks. In that moment, Jimin noticed that she had more marks around her collarbone: they were quite visible.

“Well, anyway, uh… I think you should cover up those marks before you see anyone.” Yongsun suddenly grabbed her neck, self-conscious. “I can lend you some make-up, if you want. It’s in my room.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled.

They got in the goth bar together. There were only a few people in there, as there was still sunlight outside. Many people would have considered the place dark and gloomy, as its main colors were black and scarlet, but Jimin wanted to think of it as something intimate, and even a bit erotic. It had two floors: the first one was for the bar and the tables, and the second one was composed by individual rooms for the employees. Jimin’s room was like every other one: it had a big bed on the left, a coffee table with a sofa in the middle and a boudoir on the right, with a window next to it. He helped Yongsun to cover her marks, and noticing that she almost fell asleep on him, he had to ask.

“Hey, are you okay? You look… tired.”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, it’s nothing. One of the customers got a little greedy, that’s all.”

“Noona! This is the third time this week! Was it the same guy?”

“You know we can’t reveal information about our customers, Jimin,” she sighed, tired.

“Okay,” he put the make-up back in its place and grabbed her shoulders to look into her eyes, “you know what you’re gonna do? You’re gonna go to your room and take a nap, and then you go to your date. I’ll tell the staff to not let you work for at least two weeks.”

“But…!”

“No ‘buts’! I don’t want you to get hurt, you hear me? Now come on, go!”

She left the room, resigned. Jimin leaned on the window and sighed. This was the part of his job that he didn’t like. The idea that they could end up dead anytime sometimes appeared, lurking his mind. Of course, it didn’t matter if he was a feeder or a hunter: they were all affected in the end. Vampires touched his life a long time ago, and that was something that marked you forever, be it in a good or a bad way. Even when almost all his friends were hunters, he never liked the idea of killing, so he opted for another choice: one full of new discoveries, fun, adrenaline, and why not say it, arousal.

He could still remember when his friends heard about his decision and started to freak out. He convinced them in the end, but they forced him to have some tattoos for protection. He caressed the anti-glamour tattoo of his stomach with a nostalgic smile. As if that could prevent him from dying. Of course, they wanted him to also have the rune that alerted him of the presence of other vampires, but he refused. He saw how jittery and restless they were when some vampire was close, and he was going to work in a local full of them: it was ridiculous.

In the end they all accepted it. Except Yoongi. He always worried about him, and never approved of his choices. But what really bothered Jimin was that Yoongi was unable to see that Jimin worried too. Being a hunter was even more dangerous than being a feeder, and Jimin sometimes got upset when they nearly made it after a hunt. But Yoongi only saw the wrong in him. 

With a sad look, he looked at the city. At the people. At the sunset. He was so immersed in his thoughts that he didn’t notice when someone sneaked up on him and grabbed his face from behind.

Everything became black. He screamed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before you start reading i just want to say that i thought this fanfic wouldn't catch any attention at all since it has so many fandoms in it, so i'm really grateful for every single kudo you guys give me ;v;  
> thank you so much!

Minseok let out a shaky breath. The room was dim, but he still could see the pentagon he had written on the floor with chalk, as he was kneeling in front of it. He revised the scripts around the circle to make sure he didn’t miss any clause. He then assured himself that the door was still locked, and started to light some candles that he put around the circle. There was a strong smell of incense in the room, but that wasn’t really necessary for the summoning: it just calmed his nerves.

He took his bag and started to revise all his ingredients: luck spirit’s dust, ashes and a feather from a phoenix, a fairy’s wings… He grimaced when he saw those. He wanted to buy them in the Wizard Market, but Yixing saw him and prevented him from buying them, because he already knew his intentions. So he had to sneak to the forest and get them himself. Every time those wings fluttered in his little crystal jar, he remembered the fairy’s face when he mutilated her. Minseok considered himself a good person – a pacifist even –, but he was so desperate that he didn’t know what else to do. He cried for hours when he came back home with the wings. When he checked everything, he then took a cauldron (it was very handy that he decided to use the potions classroom for this) and mixed everything in it. He put the cauldron aside.

The only thing left was the summoning. He looked at the pentagon once again and got his spell book to revise the instructions for the last time: he had to carefully write his name with blood on the border of the circle next to the word _vocare_ – on the border, not inside the circle. That would be fatal for his plans. He then started to fumble around the classroom’s drawers in search for a dagger, as there would be one for sure in there: daggers were essential for potion making, therefore in that class there had to be one somewhere. While he was still looking around, however, he heard a loud banging on the door.

“Minseok!” It was Yixing. “Open the door!”

 _How the hell did he know I was gonna be here?_  Minseok thought, paralysed. As if he had read his mind, Yixing answered.

“I put a tracking spell on you, idiot, open already! I know you’re there!”

Minseok started to palpate his body until he found a little piece of paper sticked to his back. Shit. Who would have thought that the airhead of his friend would be able to do that? He’d better hurry up before they tried to stop him.

On the other side of the door, Yixing was fuming. When he went into the forest the other day and saw that little fairy crying he didn’t want to believe that Minseok had done that. He was hurting, and grieving, and desperate, but that was too much, even for him. He kept banging the door, to no avail. Of course he wouldn’t open. He saw Taeil running to him, almost out of breath.

“Did you get the keys?” asked Yixing in a desperate tone.

“The only one who has the keys is the potions professor, and he is out of town right now.”

“Fuck.”

Right in that moment, they saw Junmyeon and Jisoo approaching them with concern on his faces.

“Hey,” said Jisoo. “Are you sure that he’s going to do that again?”

“He’s gone mental. Three weeks ago I saw him going to the dark alley of the market to get demon’s blood. I had to restrain him for the whole day,” Taeil said exasperated.

“Yeah, and the other day I realized he went to get fairy wings for himself in the forest. He’s locked himself in this classroom,” added Yixing.

“Wait a minute,” exclaimed Junmyeon, “if you didn’t let him get demon’s blood, and he already has the rest of the stuff…”

“Oh my God,” Jisoo whispered, horrified. He went to the door and started banging it. “Minseok! Please, I know you’re grieving, and that you miss him, but this is _not_ the way!”

“Oh, fuck off, Jisoo!” they heard through the door. “You’re not a sorcerer, what do you even know about the right ways!? Leave me alone!”

“Okay,” Junmyeon sighed, running his hand through his hair, “does any of you know any lock runes?”

They all directed their looks to one person.

“Why are you all looking at me?”

“You are a _senior_ , Taeil. You’re supposed to be the wiser one,” responded Yixing.

“Oh, come on! You know I’m only interested in animal magic.”

“Great. Now what?” exclaimed Jisoo.

“Well... I know someone who’s top of my class... He must know how…” as he said this, Yixing turned around to see the students who were passing by in the corridor, until he met with a familiar face. “Hey, Hakyeon!”

Hakyeon raised his head when he heard his name. He was chatting with a short student with pink hair who was wearing circular glasses. The student also turned around to see who had interrupted their conversation.

“Yes?”

“Do you know where Jaehwan is?”

“Oh, he already went home with Seokjin. Why do you ask?”

He just finished the question when suddenly the floor started to tremble, until it developed to a little seism. The panic started to arise in the people, who started to scream and run away in a chaotic way.

“Shit!” Taeil grabbed the door handle to keep his balance.

“What is going on!?” Hakyeon screamed.

“It’s Minseok! He’s locked himself in the classroom and he’s doing a summoning!”

“A what!?”

“Why don’t you fucking open the door then?” interrupted the student with glasses.

“It’s locked with magic! Only the keys or another spell can open it, and we don’t know any!”

“Ugh,” the student groaned. He started to pace to the door, careful to keep his balance, with Hakyeon behind him. Everything was so frantic and chaotic that they were all just trying to hold onto something, paralyzed, but the student advanced with a determined (and annoyed) look on his face. When he was in front of it, he pushed Taeil away while spitting ‘fucking move’.

“Hey! Have some respect for your seniors!” said Junmyeon.

“Shut up, you’re not even a sorcerer,” responded the student while he examined the lock and started to work on his spell.

“Wha—? How did you—”

“Shit! I can’t do it right if the door keeps trembling!”

“Oh, don’t worry,” muttered Hakyeon while he rummaged through his bag, “I’ll hold him down.” He took out a small rag doll.

Inside the room, the portal in the middle of the summoning circle was slowly but surely opening under Minseok’s whispers. Minseok was still holding the dagger he had found inside a cupboard, and his finger was still bleeding after having written his name outside the border. Even though he was concentrating on reciting the spell and controlling the portal, in the back of his mind he was _laughing_. Everything was so cliché: the trembling floor, the grim-looking portal, the smell of sulfur that was invading the room. If the demon ended up having horns, he was going to piss himself from laughter.

However, when he was finishing to set the portal into stability to start the real summoning, something went wrong. He collapsed on the floor, screaming. The sudden pain on his arms was unbearable, as if someone was twisting them. He kept screaming, unable to do anything, and seeing how the trembling of the floor was stopping and his portal misshaping. If he didn’t sort it quickly there was going to be a tragedy. He suddenly heard a click on the door, and directed a panicked look towards it. The door opened, and through all the people he saw, he recognized one of his classmates gripping a doll by its arms. Ugh. He had always hated voodoo magic.

The instant Hakyeon released the doll, Minseok got up and continued to recite the spell, ignoring the people who entered the room in a rush.

“Wipe out the summoning circle, that will stop everything!” Yixing yelled.

“No!” Minseok screamed as he wrote the _push_ rune in the air. Everyone was thrown away to the other side of the room. “If you touch anything it will only worsen it! I have to finish this!”

“No, you don’t!” Junmyeon said as he slowly got up. “Put a stop to this, please!” Minseok didn’t hear him. He was too preoccupied with the portal that was wobbling, and even in the dark room, it was performing a sort of shadow play. A blur, a blink, a black mass in the corner of his eye.

“Minseok, you have to let Mark rest in peace,” Jisoo pleaded.

Minseok replied him with a look full of hatred. “You don’t get to say that when you relate to the reason of his death.”

Another blur. Another blink. Another black mass through the slit of the door. He kept muttering the spell under his breath, daring anyone to move with his eyes. As expected, everyone was frozen in place. Again, another blur. What he didn’t expect is the pink-haired boy who had entered the room with them (was he a first year?) screaming ‘now!’.

He had completely forgotten about Taeil. He had heard him outside when they were arguing, but he didn’t notice him when they entered the room. He then knew that he had been hiding behind him when he felt Taeil pounce upon him. He fell forward, and had to put his hands on the floor to stop himself from hurting his face. With his bloody finger. Inside the circle.

 _No_.

The rest of the guys got up and tried to help retain him, but they stopped when they heard Minseok’s panicked voice screaming ‘close the door!’. They saw the portal becoming more tumultuous and shaky, and even though they were there to restrain Minseok, Hakyeon didn’t hesitate to rush to the door and secure it. He knew something bad when he saw it.

“Give me that dagger!” Taeil yelled as he forced Minseok.

“No! Taeil, get off me! I have to fix this!!”

The floor had started to tremble again, and the portal was throwing sparks, fumes and fire everywhere. Junmyeon and Jisoo started writing in the air the little protection runes they knew, Hakyeon and the first-year were muttering spells to try and contain the portal, to no avail, and Yixing was frantically looking for something in his bag while Minseok and Taeil rolled on the floor. All of this while the room seemed to be spiraling around: it was complete chaos.

In the middle of their tussle, a pang in Taeil’s arm made him scream. Minseok then realized that he had cut him in the arm with the dagger, and again, his blood had spilled inside the summoning circle.

 _NO_.

The portal rumbled, and a big explosion threw him and Taeil against the blackboard of the classroom. He hit his head right before seeing Yixing throw something at the circle, and a big flash of pure white invaded the room. Then, the only thing he remembered before losing consciousness was pure blackness, and a cat-like mouth with sharp teeth that was smirking at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, this early update is because this weekend i'm going to a block b concert in london and i won't have much time to write and i felt bad about that so... here! i hope you enjoyed it even tho it's short  
> also if you want to talk about kpop headcanons or see me losing my shit about block b, i'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/alichicookie)!


	4. Chapter 4

Wonwoo and Mingyu came back to the university in a slow walk, as they had their apartment on the opposite side. As they crossed the hectic campus holding hands, the latter glanced at his companion with a worried look on his face. Wonwoo was looking at the floor with half-lidded eyes, and Mingyu didn’t know if it was because he was tired or because he felt bad.

“Are you okay?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It’s just… It’s midday. I just want to go to sleep.”

“You know we can talk to Soonyoung another time, right?” He didn’t even finish the sentence when Wonwoo sighed, annoyed.

“Do I look like I want you to bring up the subject?”

“Wonwoo,” Mingyu said, stern.

“What?”

“I know you’re upset with him, but you have to understand that he was a hunter long before what happened to you. He can’t help it.”

“Yeah, I guess… Anyway, I can’t talk to him. Minghao just told us that he ran off to the sorcery school because his boyfriend called, and I don’t think we’re gonna see him any other time today…” He groaned, exasperated. “Seriously, why does he need to treat me like I’m a fucking tragedy?”

“You _are_ a tragedy,” Mingyu chuckled. He tried to correct himself when he saw his boyfriend’s stare. “At least for normal people. Hell, even I was scared when it happened. But after I got used to it, I actually felt relieved.”

“Relieved?” Wonwoo yawned as he got his keys out of his pocket. They had arrived to the door of their apartment.

“Yeah,” he answered as they went inside and past the living room. Wonwoo was going straight to the bedroom. “You have no idea how scared I was to hurt you before, or even tell you what I am.”

“Are you serious?” he asked surprised as they sat in the bed.

“I am,” Mingyu replied. “You may have been a tough guy, but not even tough guys can handle supernatural stuff.” Wonwoo snorted, laughing softly, and Mingyu slapped his shoulder. “Not funny! I was actually suffering.”

“How sweet,” his boyfriend replied with a tender smile, and Mingyu looked somewhere else, embarrassed. One thing he liked about being with Wonwoo was discovering that he had a soft spot, and he rarely showed it. He only did it when he was alone with Mingyu, and it always caught him by surprise.

“Well, whatever,” he spluttered, “it’s not like I can hurt you now, right?”

“Hmm,” he muttered as he put his arms around Mingyu’s neck, “you could try.”

He kissed him. It was a slow, languid kiss, the kind of kisses he gave only in broad daylight. Mingyu loved those. As always, he tasted too acid and too sweet at the same time. It was kind of exhilarating, but, when he thought about it, everything with Wonwoo was exhilarating. They both ended up lying in bed, caressing each other’s back, and kissing for a long time. After some minutes, Mingyu broke the kiss and pressed his forehead against Wonwoo’s.

“You need to sleep,” he said, licking his lips, “and I was supposed to meet with the pack now.”

Wonwoo groaned. “Please don’t go,” he implored as he clinged on the other’s shirt. “Cuddle with me?”

Mingyu sighed.

* * *

**From: Mingyu**

**vernoooonnnn**

**To: Mingyu**

**don’t call me that**

**are you coming or what**

**From: Mingyu**

**that’s why i’m texting you**

**i can’t :(**

**To: Mingyu**

**what**

**why not??????**

**From: Mingyu**

**uh**

**i have**

**stuff to do**

**To: Mingyu**

**yeah right**

**‘stuff’**

**From: Mingyu**

**shut up vernon!!!!**

**anyways can you tell them i can’t come please**

**To: Mingyu**

**i swear to fucking god this is the last time i cover for you hyung**

**From: Mingyu**

**thanks!!**

**wonwoo says you’re his favorite**

**To: Mingyu**

**fuck off**

**both of you**

 

Hansol groaned. This was supposed to be a hangout for just them, to go wild and hunt, but after that conversation, he declared it officially ruined. He got up from the park bench where they were sitting to wait for him. He glared at his friends Jongin, Hongbin and Minhyuk, and then at the other two people who were there. One of them was a girl with light brown hair and a round, kind face and the other was a skittish boy with red, curly hair and square glasses. Personally, Hansol thought that the guy had kind of a monkey face.

“Can you tell me why are you two here?” Hongbin asked to the pair.

“I’m Jihoon, Pyo Jihoon,” the guy said.

“He’s my friend,” Minhyuk clarified.

“Does he know…?” Jongin whispered.

“Ah, yeah, he’s Taeil’s boyfriend. That’s how I met him really. I actually went to the school to talk to Taeil but he was locked up in the infirmary and he didn’t want anyone to enter. I saw Jihoon outside, and he was feeling kind of down, so I invited him to come over… Is that okay?”

Hongbin sighed. “Yeah, I guess… And you…?” he asked the girl.

“Oh, I’m Wheein!” she replied in a cheery tone. “I study healing in the school. I was helping Yixing in the infirmary but he said he didn’t need my help anymore, and when I got out I heard the two of them talking about going to a lake, and I asked if I could tag along—”

“Why?” Hansol asked. He thought it was quite weird for some girl to just go somewhere she didn’t know. Especially with some men she didn’t know either.

“Ah, I’m doing a research on medicinal plants that grow near water, so I didn’t see why I couldn’t get the chance. Besides, it’s always nice to meet new people!” She showed them the brightest smile Hansol had ever seen. _Cute_.

“Wow,” Hongbin said, “I think you’re one of the few people apart from this guy—” he said as he pointed with his thumb at Jihoon. He puffed his cheeks out, indignant, “— who is brave enough to hang out with people like us.”

“Meh,” she said waving her hand to downplay it, “I have friends who practice the dark arts, friends who are against it, friends who feed vampires and friends who hunt them down. I’m no one to judge.”

Minhyuk groaned, annoyed. “Please don’t compare us with vampires.”

“Hey, I’m just saying. As well as you’re a nice guy, maybe there are some vampires who are nice people. Personally, I think it all depends on the character of the person.”

“About that,” Jongin said, turning around to see Hansol, “when is Mingyu coming?”

“He’s not,” he answered, rolling his eyes. “He’s with Wonwoo.”

“Eugh,” Minhyuk grimaced.

“Seriously, I’ll never understand how he can be with someone who smells like candy puke,” Hongbin commented, disgusted.

“Wow, you’re so open-minded and accepting,” Wheein muttered in a sarcastic tone. Jihoon snorted, but he tried to hide it when Minhyuk glared at him.

“Anyway, if we’re not waiting for anyone else, we should go,” Hansol said.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Hongbin sighed.

They were about to get out of the park when they heard someone shouting, and they saw Jongin physically wince and mutter ‘shit’ before turning around to see the person who was running at him. Hansol looked at him: he was a ridiculously tall guy with dark, brown hair (and really, really big ears) who was shouting Jongin’s name and waving his arm to catch his attention. He was wearing some Adidas tracksuit and a pair of headphones around his neck.

“Hey, Jongin!” the guy smiled.

“Uh, hi, Chanyeol,” Jongin greeted. “What are you doing here?”

“I was about to text you, actually, but I saw you on the other side of the park right then,” Chanyeol beamed. “I was gonna ask you, because everybody else says they’re writing assignments or whatever—we’re on September, man, what’s the rush? Anyway, Junmyeon also said that he was dealing with some problem,” when he mentioned this, Jihoon flinched in the back, “so I was wondering if you want to hang out? Like, we could go skating or make some music in the studio.”

“Man, I’m sorry,” Jongin said as he turned to look at the group who were staring at the two of them. It was then that Chanyeol noticed them.

“Oh,” he whispered. “Sorry, I didn’t see you had company. You have plans…” Jongin nodded, “Okay, yeah. Sorry,” he apologized sheepishly as he looked at the floor.

“You can come with us!” Wheein suddenly blurted out. Chanyeol raised his head as the rest of the group stared at her, wide eyed and panicked.

“Really?” he said in a hopeful tone.

“Sure! We were going to some lake and explore a bit, so, if you wanna come…” she smiled, shrugging.

“That sounds cool!”

“Nice! I’m Wheein, by the way,” she added, offering her hand to shake it with his.

“Chanyeol. Nice to meet you!” he shook her hand, and went to introduce himself to the other members of the group. Jongin and Jihoon approached Wheein, alarmed.

“Are you _insane_!?” Jongin muttered.

“What?” she asked innocently.

“My friend is a non-magic!”

“Ooohh,” she exclaimed. “I bet he’s gonna be excited when we tell him that he’s surrounded by—”

“ _NO_ ,” both Jongin and Jihoon exclaimed in a hushed tone. Jihoon put his hand on Wheein’s shoulder.

“Believe me,” he breathed as they all started to walk, “as a former member of the non-magic community, I think the best for his emotional health is if he stays unaware that he’s hanging out with a pack of wolves.”

* * *

The lake was hidden between two hills on the outside of the city. It wasn’t very big compared to the woods that hid it, and it was a peaceful place. The remnants of the summer sun kissed the skin of the boys, while the early autumn breeze chilled them quite a bit. The water of the lake seemed crystal clear, but it still looked too dark to see anything underwater. Chanyeol was quite surprised to see such a quiet place, and when he asked, Jongin confirmed him that no one knew this place except them. It was a really nice place to make a picnic, Chanyeol thought.

They spent the day looking at their surroundings, exploring, and fooling around. He saw that Wheein was really concentrated looking at some strange plants and making notes and sketches in a little notebook she had. He asked her if she studied biology or something like that in the uni, and she responded with a distracted ‘yeah, sure’ while she noted some stuff about a rare white flower that Chanyeol had never seen in his life. He always felt amazement with science, but his true passion was arts and music, and he was going to stick to that, he thought as he helped Wheein to draw the flower in a more realistic way. He then gazed at the landscape, appreciating the beauty of it, and he then saw his friend Jongin, who was talking with Minhyuk and Jihoon, both of them lazing around at the shore of the lake while Jongin was pacing around them. He then saw Hansol and Hongbin coming from behind some trees, yelling excited about some rabbits and a deer that they saw. He wished he could go see them, but he was too tired from walking all day around the lake, and besides, it was too leafy in there. He really didn’t know from where they got their stamina, but man, he wished he had the same. He saw them reunite with the other three when suddenly, a phone started to ring. It was Wheein’s.

“Yes?” she answered. “Wait, wait, can you talk more slowly…? She _what_!?” she exclaimed as she got up in a sudden move. “Okay, calm down—hey, hey, _breathe_! I’m coming, okay? Don’t move… No, I’m not in the city, but I’ll try to be quick… Yes… See you,” she put her phone and her notebook back in her backpack and started to walk.

“What was that?” Chanyeol asked. He didn’t want to intrude, but he felt really curious.

“A friend got into trouble, that’s all,” she said as she started to wave at the group. “Hey guys!”

“Yeah?” Hansol asked.

“I’m going home now; I’ve got something to do… It was nice meeting you all!”

“Okay!” Minhyuk waved back, “See ya!”

She started to walk away through the shore, until she saw something from the corner of her eye, and she stopped to look at the lake.

“Is there something wrong?” Hongbin wondered.

“You said that no one knew this place, right?” she turned to look at them.

“Yes,” Jongin said.

“Well, I swear I just saw a girl swimming on the other side,” she muttered as she looked again at the lake.

“ _Where?_ ” half of the group asked as they got up to stare at the lake. The other half didn’t know what to do, really.

“Guys, don’t look!” Jihoon whined embarrassed as he covered his eyes with his hand.

“I don’t see anything,” Minhyuk complained.

“Huh, maybe I imagined it,” she mumbled to herself. They groaned, disappointed. “Well, anyway, see you around.”

“Wait!” Jihoon got up. “Are you going to… you know… the _school_?”

“Yes.”

“Do you mind if I go with you?”

“You want to see Taeil, huh.” He nodded, looking down in a sheepish way. “Alright! He was more or less fine when I left him, but I understand if you want to try and see him. Come on, let’s go.”

“Bye guys.”

“Bye!” They saw the both of them getting smaller and smaller as they walked away. When they were gone, Hansol got up.

“Well, who wants to race?”

“Really?” Chanyeol groaned. “How can you guys have so much energy? I’m _exhausted_.” Jongin chuckled when he heard him.

“It’s okay, guys, you can go. I’ll be here chilling with Chanyeol,” he said. When he saw that Chanyeol wasn’t looking, he mouthed ‘I’ll hunt with you another day’. Hongbin, Hansol and Minhyuk nodded, and they went into the woods, leaving the two of them alone.

They laid on the grass, fresh and green, and chit-chatted for a bit. After a while, they just closed their eyes to enjoy the sun, and Chanyeol put his headphones on to listen to some classical music at full volume. At some point he must have dozed off, because he suddenly woke up under the light of the sunset when he felt some pebbles move on the ground. He leaned on his elbows to see who was walking and hitting the pebbles.

It was Jongin.

He walked at a slow pace, and he was looking forward. However, he didn’t seem like he was focusing his eyes on anything. What’s more, his eyes were half lidded, his pupils were dilated and his mouth was slightly open. He looked like he was sleep walking. But Chanyeol couldn’t remember a time when he saw him sleep walking before, nor did he remember Jongin telling him that he was a sleepwalker.

“Jongin…?” he called him. He almost couldn’t hear himself with the music blasting through his headphones.

Jongin seemed to ignore him. He kept walking to the left, near the shore, until he stopped near a rock that was quite big. He then kneeled, and Chanyeol almost jumped when he saw a pair of hands slowly reaching to Jongin’s face. So there was a person behind that rock, huh. Maybe it was the girl that Wheein saw before. But as the hands caressed Jongin’s face, he observed that those didn’t really look like female arms. Was he a man? Whoever they were, Jongin was mesmerized by them. He suddenly felt weird observing such an intimate thing (a really stupid thought, really, but it _looked_ intimate), and he was about to look away, uncomfortable, when he saw something that he didn’t expect.

The arms suddenly grabbed Jongin’s neck and pulled him under the water with force.

“ _JONGIN!_ ” Chanyeol screamed as he got up, headphones falling, and started to run towards the rock. There was a lot of splashing around as a sign of the struggle Jongin was having against whoever wanted to drown him, and when Chanyeol reached the rock, he couldn’t really see much. Lots of water, many limbs– was that a _tail_? He then grabbed the closest limb (the only one he could reach at this stage, really), that was Jongin’s left foot, and started pulling. He used all the strength he had, but whoever was holding Jongin had superhuman strength or something, because they _didn’t let go_. He was starting to get desperate when suddenly, it all ended in a quick succession of actions.

He saw a claw, a streak of blood, he heard an inhuman screech and suddenly he ended up falling on his back, with Jongin beside him, coughing and gasping desperately for air. They both got up, Chanyeol helping him to breathe.

“What the _fuck_ was that!” Jongin coughed.

‘That’s my line’, Chanyeol thought as he caught a glimpse of big, round eyes diving into the water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm updating this before i start working on uni stuff... i have to write like, four assignments in two weeks? yeah, i'm a lazy ass who loves suffering <3  
> welp, my last deadline is on the 27th so i'll start writing the next chapter then (if i'm alive by then, hah)  
> anyway, i hope you liked this one!


	5. Chapter 5

_The kid was fast. Incredibly fast for a ten-year-old. He kept running, heart almost bursting out of his chest, panting. But still running. He didn’t want to be caught. He hated to admit it, but he should have listened to Yoongi. He should have stayed with the rest of the kids, and then go all together to the auction house of the black market in the middle of the day. Walking around the suburbs alone at night was a suicide._ A retard’s choice _, were Yoongi’s exact words. Well, he may be a retard, but he couldn’t stand seeing all of his friends laying around, starving, in that little shitty flat they occupied not so long ago because it was the only one of safe enough of all the abandoned buildings they visited._

_So what he did was get up in the middle of the night, careful to not wake anyone up. Especially Yoongi. For some reason, Yoongi had declared himself responsible of the little group of stray kids. Maybe because he was the oldest. The thing is that he overworked himself most of the time, and he was always sleeping. He looked pretty exhausted, now that his friend looked at him sleep. He then took his bag and started to pack the valuable things of his parents’ inheritance. They weren’t much, and they didn’t look very expensive, but he hoped to get enough money to buy some food and surprise everyone with a decent breakfast in the morning. He lastly took a tiny, white gold earring with a cross shape, and looked at it, nostalgic. His mother loved that earring. It was probably one of the few jewels their family had, and she used to wear it a lot. He shook his head, getting out of trance, and put the earring in the bag. Whatever. If she really liked that earring and wanted to keep it that much, she shouldn’t have died three years ago._

_He got out of the building and started to walk: the auction house wasn’t far from there. When he saw the doors of the building, he started to quicken his pace, but then three men appeared out of nowhere and leaned against the entrance. Oh, no. He had seen those men before in the neighborhood. They were muggers._

_“Hey, kiddo,” the closest to him said, voice loud, “going to sell somethin’?”_

_“Uh,” he said, taking a step back, “wrong street…”_

_He turned around, and started to walk in a quick pace when he heard another one shout. “Where do you think you’re going?”_

_He panicked, and he ran. And that was what he was doing right in that instant: running. Running because he could hear the shouts of the muggers, their footsteps following close, and his own fear was eating him alive. Running because he felt the darkness too close, and his racing heart was going to kill him if he didn’t run. He turned a couple of corners, in a vain attempt to dodge them, but then he encountered a dead end. He turned around, frantic, feeling a cold shiver run down his spine. He saw the three men with knives on their hands and a smirk on their faces._

_“C’mon, give us the bag.”_

_“No,” he whispered, desperately clinging to it. That bag contained what he had left of his life and his family. He wouldn’t give it up in exchange for nothing._

_Pissed, one of the men grabbed him by the collar of his t-shirt and slammed him against the wall, skull throbbing in protest at the contact of the bricks. He still didn’t let the bag go, despite the suffocating strength of the man, despite his stinking breath, despite feeling a cold blade against his neck. He then started to scream when he felt a sting, and the trickling sensation of warm blood running down his neck. That was it. That was how his pathetic life was going to end. He wished he could have died before, with his parents. Then he wouldn’t have caused any burden to anyone._

_While he was having those thoughts, the two men from behind started to scream as well. The one who was holding him turned around and let him go, making the boy fall on the ground, bag spilling its contents. When he looked up, gasping for air and grabbing his neck, he realized that there was another person in that alley. That person was probably in his early twenties, and he was standing in the middle of the corpses of those two men. One of them was in a puddle of blood, and the other one looked like his neck was snapped. ‘Just who the hell was that man?’, the boy thought, terrified. But as said young man grabbed the third one and ripped his throat, he realized with horror his mistake._

_It wasn’t a man._

_The darkness he felt so close, and the cold shivers he had were not because of the muggers. They were because of it. One of the monsters that he didn’t want to believe they existed, even though Yoongi declared many times that they murdered his parents._ A vampire _. The monster let go of the man, who fell to the concrete like a lifeless doll, and it gave him an apathetic look. After a moment, it looked up, right to the kid’s eyes, which made him stop breathing for a few seconds._

_“Are… are you going to kill me?” the boy asked in a weak voice._

_The vampire didn’t respond immediately. It just stood there, with an inhuman stillness, boring holes with its stare at him. It was probably looking at his bleeding neck, the kid thought. Finally, it answered._

_“No.” Its voice was deep, but soft._

_It started to walk, approaching him with a gracefulness out of this world, and it stopped a few steps away. He was thankful for that, because he had the urge to walk backwards and the wall was stopping him from doing that. The monster then looked at the floor, and the boy followed his look. Right there, scattered everywhere, were his belongings: his father’s watch, his mother’s earring, his grandma’s pendant… They were all glinting prettily, but that beauty was pale compared to the soft glow of the vampire’s golden skin in the moonlight. It was weird. The kid had always thought that vampires were pale and ugly. And that being was anything but those things. Even when its face was smeared with blood and its eyes looked intense, the boy felt mesmerized. The vampire crouched down, slowly, and picked the earring. ‘Weren’t crosses supposed to harm those things?’, the kid thought, alarmed._

_“Is this yours?” it asked with its soft, velvety voice._

_“It was my mother’s…” he responded._

_The vampire hummed. “Looks pretty,” it whispered, twirling the earring in its fingers. He couldn’t believe he was having a conversation with a vampire about something as trivial as an earring. He caressed his neck, checking the cut. It was small, and the blood had already started clotting. So he wasn’t going to die from blood loss. Good. He looked at the vampire again, and saw that it was still looking at the earring, self-absorbed. Taking a closer look, it looked like a normal young man. A very handsome one, maybe. But he had seen it kill right in front of him, with its fangs out, and the dread and threat of imminent death were gnawing at him. Still, the vampire had told him that it wasn’t going to kill him. Should he be grateful to it? He was really confused in that moment. And afraid. However, the vampire looked kind of apathetic. Downcast, even._

_“You can keep it!” he blurted out. The vampire looked up, blinking its pretty lashes at him, confused. “The earring. For saving my life.”_

_The vampire opened his mouth to say something, but he suddenly turned around, alert. Maybe he was hearing something. After a few seconds, the boy could hear it too: voices and footsteps. Voices of children calling his name. Great. They were looking for him._

_“Jimin!” That was Namjoon’s voice._

_Quick as a shadow, the vampire jumped to the rooftop, but before he could disappear forever in the dark of the night, Jimin’s shout made him stop._

_“Wait!” He turned around to look at Jimin. “What’s your name?”_

_The vampire smiled sadly at him._

* * *

“You gave me a _heart attack_!” Jimin yelled, clenching his chest.

The vampire was still rolling on the floor, laughing. Wheezing, to be more specific, as if he actually needed the air, the little shit. “But your face!” he said only, as if that was justification enough for the prank he made.

“Not funny, Tae,” the ginger said with a shaky breath as he let himself fall on his bed, trying to calm his racing heart. Taehyung got up from the floor, still chuckling. “I’m serious, don’t ever sneak up on me again.”

“Okay, okay. Sorry,” he replied, apologetic. He sat down on the bed, beside Jimin. “But you _are_ aware that this could happen to you sooner or later if you keep working here, right?”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Jimin groaned against his pillow. For some strange reason, he and Taehyung had the habit of having casual conversations whenever they saw each other, even though months or years could pass between their meetings. They talked to each other as if they saw each other every day. And that was comforting for Jimin. It was a great friendship. What he couldn’t believe was that this was the first topic they were talking about after not seeing each other in years. “Not you too. I’ll handle one lecture a day, thank you very much.”

“Hey, I didn’t save your sorry ass all those years ago for you to end up like this!”

“Well, I’m sorry, but this ‘sorry ass’ is twenty years old and can do whatever he wants,” the ginger answered, annoyed.

“Wait,” the brunette looked taken aback, “twenty…?”

“Yes. Actually, as a matter of fact, I’m gonna be twenty-one next month.”

“Man, I need to keep a better track of time.”

Jimin raised his head and looked at the vampire. “How old did you think I was?” he snorted.

“I don’t know! But I thought you hadn’t reached my age yet…”

“Wait, what?” he immediately sat up.

“Well, I was converted when I was twenty-one.”

“Shut up!” Jimin exclaimed, smacking the vampire’s hand excitedly. Taehyung could see that he was giddy. “So we have the same age now?”

“Um, no. I’m 389 years old, Jimin,” the brunette smirked.

“Oh, come on, you know what I mean…! Wait, in what month were you born?”

“December. Why?”

“Dude, if we were from the same year you’d have to call me hyung.”

The vampire scoffed. “Keep dreaming.”

“You’re no fun,” the ginger pouted. “No wonder you still haven’t found the love of your life.” That was Taehyung’s biggest obsession that Jimin learned with the passing of time: finding his soulmate. He never talked about his past, or his human life, but Jimin didn’t need to ask to know it had been tragic. He could see it in the vampire’s sad eyes or his melancholic expression. So, his plan had been to travel around the world, find his soulmate and convert them so they could be together for all eternity. Quite stupid, if you asked Jimin. But he never said that to Taehyung, because he knew that he was a romantic fool with a seventeenth century mindset, so they boy couldn’t really blame him.

There was even a time when Jimin wanted to convince Taehyung that he was his soulmate, and that he should convert him. Taehyung just shook his head, saying that he couldn’t just snatch away something so valuable as his human life. ‘Because,’ Taehyung had told him, ‘you love being alive’. Besides, later he told him that he had absolutely no idea how to convert someone into a vampire. The ginger didn’t believe him, of course, but after talking with some of his clients he came to the conclusion that vampire conversion was either a complete mystery or a secret known only to a few privileged. That had really upset him, because _how was Taehyung going to convert his soulmate into a vampire if he hadn’t the faintest idea on how to do it?_ When he confronted him, the tanned vampire just shrugged and said ‘if we’re meant to be, it will happen’. More romantic bullshit. In situations like these, sometimes Jimin just wanted to scream and rip his hair out. Taehyung tried to explain to him that he was just doing the same thing his maker did to him, but so far it hadn’t yielded results, which only meant that the people he had been with just weren’t his soulmates. However, he never specified what exactly he tried. And no matter how many times the ginger asked, he never answered that question.

“Come on, like you’re one to talk!” Taehyung pouted. When he did those kind of expressions he looked _so_ human, Jimin thought. In all his time working in the goth bar, he had never met a vampire that looked as human as Taehyung.

“I’m sorry, not everyone is interested in having a love life,” Jimin smirked.

“Says the man who’s obsessed with sex,” the vampire rolled his eyes.

“Hey, that’s a complete different thing,” the ginger replied, shrugging. “By the way, I saw a boy today—”

“Oh god…”

“—and he was so cute, Tae, you have no idea.”

“Did you just say ‘cute’?” Taehyung smiled.

“Well, yeah, he was. He got flustered so easily… I love when they do that,” Jimin said with a dreamy sigh.

“Oh, this is interesting,” Taehyung crossed his legs. “What’s his name?”

“I don’t know.”

“What? You don’t?”

“No. I just call him pretty boy. I met him this morning when he ran over me with his skateboard.”

The vampire gave him a deadpan stare. “Are you serious.”

“Very. And, oh my god, Taehyung, you should have seen _those arms_!” he exclaimed as he started to gesticulate with his hands. “And his thighs looked like sculpted by the gods, I swear. Also, when he got up and skated away I just stared at his butt like, ‘I hate to see you leave, but I love watching you go’.”

“Aaaand there you go,” Taehyung chuckled. “You haven’t changed a bit since the last time I saw you.”

“You wanted me to change?”

“No, this is great,” he replied with a boxy grin. “I think your hormones have hit you harder, though…”

Jimin smacked his friend, making him laugh. “Stop teasing me and tell me about you! How was Europe? Did you meet someone?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Ah…” Taehyung’s expression turned somber, and a little sad. Less human. “Yes, a couple of people. But… They weren’t the one.”

“Aw, I’m sorry, man,” Jimin said, gently patting the brunette’s back. “You know, maybe you would be happier if you didn’t obsess so much with the soulmate thing. Just… Try to enjoy something normal. A normal relationship. Or maybe just something casual. There are plenty more fish in the sea, anyway.”

Taehyung looked up, eyes cold. “Are you seriously telling me that? I am a _vampire_ , Jimin. I can’t have normal things, okay?” He had raised his voice, and it had broken at the end of the sentence. “Not like you. I mean, how many humans would want to be with me just for the sole reason of being with me? Who wouldn’t be scared to death, or wouldn’t want something in return like power, eternal life or just the excitement of meddling with the unknown?” Jimin flinched at the mention of the last part. He suddenly felt kind of guilty. “And even if someone wanted to be with me, I could hurt them, or something can go wrong in a way that it can’t be treated as ‘casual’. And maybe I’m selfish, because I imagine the possibility and… I don’t want to share intimacy with someone for only a few decades. It’s already pretty horrible thinking that you’ll die someday, and you’re my friend, Jimin. How do you think I’ll feel when that person passes away?”

Jimin just stared at Taehyung, who was at the verge of tears, and he suddenly felt an overwhelming feeling that started to suffocate him. He had never really imagined how reality could be if he was a vampire. Everything would be fleeting: people and memories lost in the blink of an eye. Of course Taehyung was so weary of relating himself with humans. Of course most vampires lived in the dark, locked away from reality, and they never cared about human life. Humans were their sustenance, true, but things like the goth bar demonstrated that some vampires still wanted to appreciate what they were once in their past lives. Now that he thought about it, he could kind of understand why they usually felt so indifferent towards people’s deaths, though. Your family and friends? Gone in a second. Every attempt you make at building a new life, with new people? Gone too.

Jimin got a better look at the vampire that was in front of him. A vampire that was almost four centuries old. A frozen picture that will look the same even when Jimin will be grey and wrinkled. And Taehyung still _cared_. He just had so much love to give and no one who stayed long enough to receive and appreciate it. Just a romantic fool.

“I’m so sorry, Tae, I didn’t think—”

“No, no, it’s okay. I…” he took a deep breath, “I’m used to this. It’s my life, after all,” he made a sad smile. Jimin hated those.

“Well…” the ginger whispered, trying to change the subject but without knowing how. A long, awful silence stretched before he spoke again. “So, where are you travelling next?”

“Oh, I just settled in the university of the town.”

“Wait, my uni?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s been seventy years since the last time I went to it, so I think it’s fine.”

“That’s great!” Jimin chirped. “I can see you more time then!”

“Yeah,” the brunette answered, a shy smile slowly appearing. “I already signed up for literature classes. Those are the best.”

“Well,” Jimin snorted, “you would know. So, how’s the people in your class? Have you…” he looked at the vampire tentatively, not wanting to hurt him again, “... met anyone?”

“Uh huh.”

“Wait, for real?” He received a nod as an answer. “Well? Give me a name!”

Taehyung smiled.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> plot twist: jimin is fine! hahah, gotcha there  
> also guess who's overwhelmed with fanfic writing and a VERY possible part-time job???  
> yeah


	6. Chapter 6

“Agustina?” Namjoon snorted.

“What? Everyone thought I was half-foreign, I had to come up with something convincing,” Yoongi grumbled, trying to tie his hair up in a ponytail. Having long hair sucked. Wearing a skirt also sucked, he noticed. He noticed that during the day, when he couldn’t sit however he wanted. Pretending to be a woman in general was pretty shitty.

“Yeah, it’s not like it sounds fake or anything. That name is _lame_ ,” the younger chuckled.

They were seated in the cafeteria of the university, eating lunch. It was midday, so the place was full and they had to talk in a low voice between them. A couple of days had passed since Yoongi had started interacting with the vampire, and he was getting restless. Usually, vampires didn’t take too much time to get their victims alone: seduction wasn’t very difficult for them, especially if they touched the human and pushed their glamor to them. But this vampire was keeping its distance, being polite and trying to earn ‘her’ trust. Like the perfect gentleman. Why couldn’t that sucker simply take him to a deserted alleyway so he could nail a stake into its heart and be done with it? It was driving Yoongi mad.

“Whatever, it’s not like that thing will notice it’s fake… It hasn’t even noticed that I’m wearing rune tattoos, or that I’m disguised with a spell,” he commented as he stuffed his face with rice.

“Well, I don’t blame it,” Namjoon rested his chin on the palm of his hand. “You can be pretty distracting.” It was blunt, but sincere. Too bad Yoongi didn’t notice.

“Ha, ha,” he said, sarcastic. “Seriously, Namjoon, this vampire is the fucking dumbest I have ever dealt with. It behaves like a five-year-old!”

“Yeah, I know. It wasn’t that hard to track either.”

“Right? What kind of sucker doesn’t delete its record in a university it had been 70 years ago? What’s more, what kind of _idiot_ uses the _same name_ when it comes back?”

The younger sighed. They kept eating, Namjoon listening to the older complain about vampires and later on about his stupid disguise. He knew that what was really itching Yoongi was that the vampire was behaving like a _human_. And that felt wrong. Namjoon had only observed it in the distance, watching while it exchanged smiles and soft laughs with ‘Agustina’. Yes, those smiles were fake. But it still hurt him that that monster was able to see Yoongi’s gummy smiles. It didn’t deserve them. Besides, he couldn’t begin to imagine how horrible must be for Yoongi to be pretending that much, and to have to put up with the act of that beast that must’ve killed hundreds of people. Seeing it behave like a normal college boy hurt.

Namjoon started to think in a strategy to lure the vampire to an isolated area to end it already, for they couldn’t keep that act forever, when he noticed a boy clearing his throat at his back. He turned around to look at him. He was young, probably a first year. His hair was dark, and he was wearing a plain white t-shirt and black jeans. He looked sheepishly at Namjoon, carrying a tray full of food in his hands.

“Sorry, can I sit here? Everywhere else is full,” he asked.

“Yeah, sure,” the hunter said.

The young man seated next to him, and Namjoon could notice that the boy had gotten flustered when he had glanced up and saw that Yoongi was sitting in front of him. It was something quite curious, really. Yoongi as a man could only inspire intimidation to other people, unless you knew him like Namjoon and saw that he was everything but a threat. He was still intimidating, though. And as a girl, well. Agustina was pretty, and many people looked at her, but only in the distance. In a strange sort of way, she was still intimidating. However, the difference was that people tried nevertheless. They tried to approach her, they were nice to her. It was kind of stupid, in Namjoon’s opinion. Why should gender change anything at all in the person?

He saw the boy starting to eat his food, but then Yoongi – Agustina—glanced up and looked at the boy’s tray.

“Hey,” Yoongi called, pointing his finger at the boy’s tray. The boy stopped chewing, looking up like a deer caught in the headlights. “Are those lamb skewers?”

“Um,” the boy said, gulping. “Yes.”

“What the fuck, man?” Yoongi suddenly whined, slamming his chopsticks on the table while looking at Namjoon. “Why didn’t I see them?”

“They were literally right next to the mashed potatoes,” Namjoon commented while sipping his juice.

“What!? You knew and you didn’t tell me?” the older said, offended.

“I thought you didn’t want them? You passed by them without even looking.”

“I always want lamb skewers, you know that,” he muttered, pursing his lips.

“Uh,” the dark-haired boy cleared his throat, “you can have mine if you want.”

Yoongi perked up. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I mean, they were the last ones, but I have a lot of food anyway. Go ahead.”

“What’s your name, kid?” the older asked as he took the first bite of one of the skewers.

“Jungkook. Jeon Jungkook,” the boy said, maybe a little too loud. “We go to the same gothic literature class, actually.”

Yoongi hummed, concentrating on eating his skewer. His chin was getting stained with the sauce. Namjoon sighed. “Christ, get a napkin or something,” he complained as he handed him one. Yoongi smiled.

“Well, Jungkook,” he said as he wiped his face, grinning, “I think this is the beginning of a wonderful friendship.”

 

* * *

 

Minseok opened his eyes, tired. He was lying on his side, looking at the wall of the infirmary. He sighed. Right in that moment, he really, really wanted to cry out of frustration, but he was too drained for that. He had been so close. _So close_. He wanted to get up, go to his friends and yell at them. He would, eventually. They didn’t have any right to stop him, yet they had done it. Because ‘he needed to move on’. Because ‘playing with the dark arts was forbidden’. Because ‘he had to let Mark rest in peace’. Jisoo had the guts to say that last part to him, when they were keeping him from doing the summoning. More than anything, Minseok wanted to punch his face. He didn’t have any right to talk about him.

He grumbled, turning around in the bed to lie on his back, and he flinched, almost having a heart attack. Just centimeters away, he was met with a pair of almond eyes, who were staring at him curiously. He didn’t know why he hadn’t screamed of fright. Maybe because he was so startled that he had stopped breathing. Those eyes belonged to a young man he had never seen in his life. He looked more or less his age ( _maybe younger?_ ), and he didn’t look like a sorcerer. At least, Minseok didn’t remember seeing him in the school. The boy had short black hair, a long neck and prominent cheekbones, and he was giving him a cheshire grin.

“Finally,” the boy beamed. “I thought you’d never wake up.”

“Who are you?” Minseok asked in a loud voice.

The young man just put a finger on his thin lips. “Shh,” he motioned to the bed and the desk that were next to his, “you don’t want to wake them up, do you?”

In the bed next to him, that pink haired first year was resting, his shoulder bandaged. In the desk that was in front of him, Yixing was resting his head, softly snoring. He looked exhausted. Minseok suddenly felt bad. He felt… guilty. He didn’t know that trying to summon a demon would be so chaotic, and much less did he think that so many people would get involved and hurt trying to stop him. Heck, he barely knew that pink haired kid that was injured right next to him. He only knew that he saw him sometimes hanging out with his classmate Hakyeon, and that’s all.

Minseok looked at the young man that was in front of him again, and lowered his voice. “Who are you?” he repeated.

“I’m Chen,” the boy said simply.

“Chen what?”

“Just Chen.”

“That’s not even a name!” Minseok complained.

Chen gave him a lopsided grin. “Well, Kim Minseok, what do you think my name should be, then?”

 That had caught him off guard. “Wait, how do you know _my_ name?”

The dark-haired man chuckled. “How would I _not_ know?” he said, slowly leaning forward, making Minseok lean against the mattress. “You wrote it for me, after all.”

“What…”

Right in that moment, Minseok heard the door of the infirmary opening, seeing out of the corner of his eye an infuriated Hakyeon.

“Don’t you _dare_ touch him, you monster!” he yelled.

Chen let out a ghoulish laughter, teeth suddenly a little too sharp, as Yixing jumped awake on his desk, and Minseok saw with horror how the boy in front of him mutated into a shapeless black mass. The only thing that remained of the boy was his grin. A very familiar grin, he suddenly realized. He widened his eyes in shock. He had seen that black mass before.

_He was too preoccupied with the portal that was wobbling, and even in the dark room, it was performing a sort of shadow play. A blur, a blink, a black mass in the corner of his eye._

_Another blur. Another blink. Another black mass through the slit of the door._

_Then, the only thing he remembered before losing consciousness was pure blackness, and a cat-like mouth with sharp teeth that was smirking at him._

‘Oh, no’. Minseok started screaming, panicked, jumping out of his bed, when that black mass started to fuse with his shadow. He could still hear that inhuman laughter, but he couldn’t see that black mass anymore. He only saw his shadow. He suddenly felt a prickle in his back, and the terror started to invade him when he saw the black mass wrap around his torso, shaping again into human form—except for the hands, which looked like black claws—, arms embracing him with force.  He tried to get out of the grasp, but that thing was _strong_. Chen leaned his chin against Minseok’s shoulder, looking at a very alarmed Hakyeon and a confused Yixing that were in front of them.

“What are you going to do about it, hm?” Chen asked in an amused tone.

There was silence and tension in the room for a few seconds, Minseok feeling his own heart pumping against his chest in a manic beat. Until, suddenly, Hakyeon yelled out in frustration. “I can’t believe you, Yixing!”

The other boy turned his head around to look at the older, more confused than he was before. “What? Me?”

Chen laughed again, breath hot against Minseok’s ear, voice vibrating against his skin. It wasn’t a nice feeling. It wasn’t _human_.

“I told you to watch the demon until Minseok woke up,” Hakyeon said through gritted teeth. “How could you even fall asleep in front of a dark creature!?”

Yixing sighed. “Oh, come on, I spend my free time around vampires, give me a break!”

Hakyeon scoffed offended when he heard that. “Vampires are not the same as demons!”

Yixing ruffled his hair, tired. “Well, what does it matter? He can’t do anything to him, they have a blood bound,” he said, gesticulating his hands at them.

Minseok let out the breath he didn’t know he had been holding. “What?” he heaved.

“Spoilsport,” muttered the demon, letting go of the sorcerer. Minseok ran to the side of his friends.

“Are you fucking serious,” Hakyeon asked.

“Yeah, if one of them is hurt, the other will be hurt too. Haven’t you ever read anything about contracts?”

“Um, no?”

“What kind of voodoo sorcerer are you?”

“Guys, there’s a fucking demon in the room!” Minseok yelled. The pink haired first year groaned in his bed, turning around. Still he didn’t wake up. Quite an achievement, taking into account that he was in the middle of a ruckus.

“ _Your_ demon, to be more precise,” Chen pointed out.

“What?” He suddenly felt dizzy.

“Well, damn, you must be confused as hell. You do know that you did a summoning, right?” he asked, smirking and walking slowly towards them. “You drew the circle. You wrote a contract. You signed with your blood.”

“But I didn’t put any inside—” Minseok stopped himself, the struggle he had with Taeil passing by his mind like a flash, “fuck.” He turned around to see the tanned man in the eyes. “This is all your fault!”

“Why me?” Hakyeon exclaimed, indignant.

“Yeah, I don’t know what you guys did,” the demon said, getting closer as he stared at them, “but I can feel another bond with that short sorcerer, the one with the tattoos in his hands. It’s weaker, but it’s there.”

“Please tell me it’s a joke,” Hakyeon groaned. “Taeil has his own demon to deal with.”

“He _what_!?”

“There were other demons that came out of the portal,” Yixing commented. “Maybe because it wasn’t stable.”

“Yeah, we restrained them and we put them in a containment circle in the room of the upper floor that no one uses. Junmyeon and Jisoo are watching them with Taeil.”

“And why didn’t you take _him_?” Minseok asked, staring at the demon in front of him.

Chen scoffed. “Because I’m the first one who touched your shadow, and I’m attached to you.”

“What does that even mean?”

“When you contract a demon, it gets attached to your shadow and can’t be a long distance away from you. That’s why Taeil can’t leave the room upstairs right now. Jesus Christ, Minseok, how the heck did you even dare to do a summoning without knowing these things?” Yixing said, exasperated.

“Because I didn’t plan on making a contract with any demon, I just wanted to kill one!”

“Ouch,” the demon muttered.

The tiny first year groaned again in his bed, but this time he was awake. “Will you shut the fuck up just for a fucking minute,” he grumbled. He ruffled with his sheets, covering himself with them, and stood silent and still again, breathing softly. That made Chen snort. It was really irking Minseok the way that monster laughed so carefree, feline expression making him uneasy.

Hakyeon sighed as he threaded his fingers through his hair. “I’m gonna… You know, tell the rest that you’re awake. I need to go home afterwards.”

Just when he turned the doorknob, Minseok stopped him. “Wait,” he said, grabbing his wrist. “What happened with the school, and the teachers, and…”

He didn’t know how to express his question, but Hakyeon had understood him nevertheless. “We told them that it was all a failed potions experiment. You’re gonna be expelled for a couple of weeks, but that’s it. We didn’t tell them anything about the demons, don’t worry. By the way, you’ve been unconscious for a couple of days, so it’s weekend already.”

“ _A couple of days_?” Minseok asked, alarmed.

“Well yeah, you were drained of all your magical energy. Honestly, I’m more surprised that you didn’t faint before while doing the summoning, that circle was quite big.” Minseok exhaled, dumbfounded. He had been unconscious for _days_. And he still didn’t feel fully recovered, to be honest. Maybe, he thought, suddenly reminded of the presence he had at his back, it was because of the demon. He had read somewhere that when you made a bound with any kind of creature, that creature would support itself with part of your vital energy. It was quite a bother, now that he was in that situation. “Anyway,” Hakyeon continued, “there aren’t many people at the school right now, so I advise you to get out of here quickly and take the demons somewhere else before some teacher decides to go to that room. It wouldn’t be pretty.”

“Thank you,” Minseok mumbled as Hakyeon opened the door. “And… Sorry.”

“Yeah, well…” Hakyeon gave him a weak smile before softly closing the door, making the room silent again.

Minseok let out a long breath, shoulders slumping, and Yixing rubbed his hand at his back in comforting circles.

“Are you okay?” the younger asked in a low voice.

“Yeah, it’s just… I didn’t know it could get so out of control, Yixing, I swear, I didn’t want anyone getting hurt either,” the sorcerer said, voice breaking, “I just missed him _so much_ —”

“Boohoo, poor you,” the demon mocked, voice loud. Both Yixing and Minseok gave him a dirty look. “I’m hungry, take care of me already.”

“What,” Minseok said, tone flat.

“I’ve been stuck in this infirmary with you the whole time, without anywhere to go. I’m _starving_. And just so you know, if I’m weak, you’ll be weak too.”

“Okay, what do you demons usually eat,” the older grunted. He couldn’t believe he had to _feed_ that goddamn monster.

“Oh, almost everything, really. Spirits, magical creatures… Humans are okay, too. Say, you don’t seem too attached to Mr. Pink over there. Can I eat him?”

“ _No_ ,” Minseok yelled, horrified, as the same time the first year raised his head from his pillow to stare at Chen.

“I’ll fucking murder you, demon,” he spat.

“But then you’d be killing Minseok too,” Chen smirked.

“Like I give a shit,” the boy grunted.

Wow, Minseok thought as Chen cackled loudly. That boy sure had a lot of anger for a person so tiny. Right in that moment, Junmyeon opened the door of the infirmary.

“Minseok, you’re okay!” he exclaimed as he hugged him.

“Can I eat him then?” the demon asked, pointing his finger at Junmyeon. The aforementioned widened his eyes, staring at Chen and bringing Minseok closer to him, tightening the hug.

“Jesus Christ,” Minseok groaned as he undid the embrace and faced the demon, “no. As long as you have this contract with me, you can’t eat any humans, you hear me?”

“Killjoy.”

The older opted to ignore him, sighing, and he faced Junmyeon again. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s… It’s okay,” the other said, a little fazed.

“Look, I… You didn’t have to. I’m sorry, but you should’ve let me be and stayed out of the way. I was doing fine before you barged into the room and stopped the summoning.”

“Well, excuse me,” Junmyeon huffed, “but we’re talking about dark arts over here. I don’t need to be a sorcerer to know that that is pretty serious.”

“Yeah,” Yixing added, “I mean, I know that you’re having a hard time, Minseok, but a _resurrection spell_? Do you want to die?”

“You should check ‘resurrection’ in the dictionary, Yixing.”

“Wait, that’s what you wanted my blood for?” Chen suddenly exclaimed. He looked offended.

“Please shut up,” Minseok whispered while rubbing the bridge of his nose, tired. Chen huffed and crossed his arms, indignant, but surprisingly, he did shut up. Thank god.

“You know what I mean,” Yixing pouted.

“Where are the others?” the older asked, opting to change the subject.

Junmyeon sighed. “Taeil is with the demons on the upper floor. I think he’s talking with his boyfriend now? I don’t know, I think there was another person looking for him too. I saw him enter the room after Jisoo and I came out. Jisoo is outside. He doesn’t want to get inside, because… You know…”

Minseok just nodded. _Smart boy_. He wasn’t sure if he could see Jisoo right now. However, he did hear him through the door.

“Soonyoung? What—”

“You told me Jihoon was upstairs!” they heard another voice through the door.

“Well, yeah, he is. He’s with his boyfriend…”

“What?”

“What.”

“Jihoon is _my_ boyfriend!”

“ _What_? Since when are you dating Pyo Jihoon!?”

“Who?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” all the people in the room turned around when they heard the pink haired boy mutter. “I’m in here, you dipshit!!” he yelled.

“Jihoon?” the voice they all identified as Soonyoung asked, and the door opened, letting a boy with very slanted eyes inside. ‘A hunter’, Yixing noticed as he saw the dagger in the boy’s belt. The young man rushed to the bed where the first year was leaning, leaving the door wide open and a very confused Jisoo behind. When he saw Soonyoung hugging the pink haired boy, he breathed a small ‘oh’ in understanding. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry I couldn’t come to get you before! The staff from school didn’t let me to get inside! But, well, I already texted you that—”

“Soonyoung, you’re hurting my shoulder,” the small man said through gritted teeth.

“Oh, sorry…”

“So, you’re…” Junmyeon said, tone questioning towards the first year.

“Lee Jihoon. I’m not gonna say ‘nice to meet you’ because, well. It hasn’t been nice.”

“Someone’s salty,” Chen muttered. He tried to cling to Minseok again, but the sorcerer flinched and Junmyeon put an arm around his shoulder, protecting him while giving Chen the stink eye. The demon just shrugged it off.

“Yes, I wouldn’t say ‘nice’ either,” Junmyeon eyed the monster before looking again at Jihoon. “I just wanted to ask… How did you know I wasn’t a sorcerer?”

“I can see auras. You don’t have the same amount of magical energy as a sorcerer. But, well, I guess your energy is above average. As well as your friend over there,” he pointed with his chin at Jisoo, who was at the entrance of the room. He made a little jump.

“Oh, so you’ve met my friend Jisoo?” Soonyoung beamed.

“He’s your friend?” Jihoon asked, eyeing the guy. Jisoo still didn’t say anything, or dared to enter. He was looking warily at Minseok.

“Yeah. Hey, Jisoo!” the hunter called. Jisoo responded with a questioning hum. “I told you my boyfriend was cute,” he said, smiling. Jihoon smacked the back of his head, and Jisoo just gave him a weak smile.

“Well, I’m gonna… You know, go check on…” he said, awkwardly pointing his finger to the ceiling. The upper floor. “Yeah.” Jisoo started to walk away slowly, while the people of the room except Minseok stared at his back.

“What’s wrong with him?” Soonyoung asked, confused.

“I don’t know, he’s _your_ friend,” the pink haired boy grunted. “Hey, can you pass me the crutches? I want to get out of here asap.”

“Wait, crutches?” Minseok asked. “You can’t walk?”

“Nope,” Jihoon answered as he removed the sheets of the bed, revealing a leg cast. “Broken leg. Thanks to you.”

Minseok huffed, indignant. “ _Me_? I never told you to get involved in my business!”

“Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but you were provoking a _fucking seism_ in the school! That’s my business too!”

They started to yell at each other, putting the blame in this person and the other, till the point where Soonyoung and Junmyeon had to intervene to placate the both of them. It was chaos. Chen observed from aside, snickering, while Yixing looked at the scene, confused and not knowing what to do. In the end, he opted to quietly approach the demon: he wanted to ask him something.

“Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m curious about something.”

“What?”

“These days, there had been a lot of times when had our guards down in here. I was even asleep right before Minseok woke up.”

“Yeah, you were pretty cute,” Chen smirked.

The sorcerer frowned. “What I mean, is… Why didn’t you take any chance to kill us, or eat us? There was nothing preventing you from doing it.”

“Of course there was something preventing me. If that wasn’t the case, you would be dead by long,” the demon scoffed.

“Really? What was it?”

“An order from my master,” Chen said in a low voice. Despite the yelling in the room, Yixing heard him clearly.

“An order? What order?”

“ _Don’t hurt him_.”

“What? When did Minseok say that? He was unconscious the whole time.”

“Look,” the demon said, exasperated. The denseness of that human was draining his patience, “he was talking in his sleep. He said ‘don’t hurt him’, and as much as that’s a pain in my ass, it still counts as an order. I can’t disobey him. And he was not specific. I didn’t know if ‘him’ referred to you, the tiny guy, the voodoo idiot, or who, so I just _stayed put_.”

Yixing was silent after that, pensive. The arguing of the boys was getting louder and it didn’t seem like they were going to make up. After a couple of minutes, Yixing gave a sad look to Minseok, who was right then puffing out his cheeks indignantly, dry tear tracks still visible on his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god, i swear i feel like i had the january exams two days ago and now i have to start studying AGAIN  
> why am i such a slow writer o<<


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am alive and so SORRY wow it's been months already!! anyway i hope you guys can forgive me ;;

Kyungsoo hissed. “It _hurts_.”

“Well,” Jeonghan sighed, exasperated, “it wouldn’t _hurt_ so much if you stayed _put_!” He pressed the wound with the medicinal seaweed, making the older wince.

He heard a snicker on his back, and he turned around, frowning. “What are you laughing at, Hyejin? This is all your fault!”

Hyejin swished her tail, red scales glistening in the clear water, and she shrugged her shoulders, smirking. “Me? I wasn’t the one who almost tore your chest apart.”

“No,” Kyungsoo huffed, bubbles drifting into the surface, “you just lied to me.”

“Hey,” she retorted, “I didn’t lie to you. What I saw when I went outside was a girl. Also, I’m pretty sure that she saw me too,” she mentioned as she lied down on a rock next to her younger brother.

Said younger brother decided to comment something as he absentmindedly groomed his pink tail. “No offence, but a male werewolf is quite different from a female human.”

“ _Thank you_ , Seungkwan,” Kyungsoo added while Jeonghan put more seaweed in his scarred chest.

“How come you know so much about humans and you haven’t become a siren yet?” Hyejin frowned at Seungkwan.

“Hey, I like humans. Just not as food, they’re gross. So I don’t see why I have to kill any of them,” he grimaced.

“Oh, baby Boo, you’re missing so much,” Jeonghan mumbled as he left the finishing touches on the wound.

Kyungsoo sighed. He was so done with this. Since Luhan had left the lake after becoming a siren, there were only the four of them left, and they promised each other that they would wait until all of them became sirens before going anywhere, so none of them was left behind alone. Which was quite weird, because years ago, from time to time, a new merman or mermaid was always born from the foam and the bubbles of the lake, deep within it. However, one day, it simply stopped giving birth to them. No more merfolk.

Since that day, Kyungsoo had the strange feeling that the lake was slowly dying.  And he wasn’t the only one who thought that. Many of them had that nagging thought in the back of their minds. Before leaving, his dearest hyung told him to be careful and not to stay too long in the lake: he was sure that someone was draining its magic, and that was the reason why everything was slowly dying in there. Kyungsoo didn’t understand. How could someone possibly ‘drain’ that? Jungsuk never explained it to him. He just left the moment he earned his legs, happily rambling about going to the Atlantic Ocean and meeting pretty girls. 

The merman didn’t like to admit it, but he cried when Jungsuk left. He was the closest of his siblings, and he was going to miss him a lot. Of course, he didn’t cry in front of his other siblings—they wouldn’t have let him live that down, ever. So there they were, only four merfolk left in the lake, and two of them were already sirens. The most humiliating part was that Kyungsoo was the oldest of them, yet he still wasn’t a siren. Hyejin loved to tease him about that a lot (although she just loved to tease everyone in general). It was really frustrating for him because it really wasn’t that difficult to become a siren. Unlike Seungkwan, he didn’t feel attached to humans or didn’t have any affection for them, and he especially didn’t have any problem with their taste. He just thought that it was a waste to use his voice for something so… crude.

It was actually simple. He just had to lure a human and rip out their eyes—the essence of the soul—to take them to the pit of the lake. And all that process, for what? Supposedly, it made you stronger. It made you have sharp claws— _sharper than a werewolf’s_ , Jeonghan told him once he saw him hurt—, and the most important part: it granted merfolk legs during the night. Kyungsoo thought it was ridiculous. He didn’t think that a couple of limbs were worth the energy of a human soul. However, in those moments, to have legs and get out of there was something precious and necessary for them, which kind of made Kyungsoo sad. The lake was their home, and they were just going to flee from it and let it die.

He scratched the green scales of his elbows, annoyed, and after that, he just fiddled with his fingers as he looked at his siblings, slightly ashamed for not accomplishing something so easy. They didn’t seem to be judging him, though. All of them were quite different, yet they were so caring and loving with each other (teasings aside, of course).

Seungkwan, sweet Seungkwan, was the youngest of them. He was a lovely merman, with chubby cheeks and hazel hair that looked really fluffy—they knew because he spent most of the time on the surface watching people and magical creatures in general, more than enough for his hair to get dry and puffy. His tail was the prettiest, being a soft pink, and he liked to sing when no one was listening (except maybe his siblings, when he was in the mood). He was pretty sensitive, and not violent at all; he didn’t like the idea of murdering another being, even though he knew he had to do it eventually to get out of there. He wasn’t in a hurry for that.

Then, there was Jeonghan, so different in personality and physique. The features of his face were the softest, and the scales of his tail were of a creamy, pastel yellow that blended nicely with his skin tone. His hair was long and lavender—he even bragged that some humans told him he _smelled_ like lavender, although none of them knew what lavender really smelled like. It was supposed to be nice, anyway—, and you could practically summarise his personality in one word: nonchalant. Since he became a siren, he liked to go to town at night, with the clothes of his victim, and go to parties. They were fun, he said. And since not so many people got close to the lake, when he got bored of eating fish he could just lure one of the humans in the parties where he went and bring them to the lake. Easy peasy.

Hyejin, the last mermaid of the lake, could also be described as nonchalant, Kyungsoo thought. Her features were sharp and curvy at the same time, and while he hair was black with dark blue highlights, her tail was a scarlet red that matched her sensual gaze. Although she sometimes tagged along with Jeonghan and went to parties with him, she usually preferred to stay in the lake. She liked to lure pretty girls with her voice, and drown them just for fun. She said they were tastier than men, but honestly, her siblings couldn’t see the difference. She behaved like a dork most of the times, and that was one of the reasons they were so fond of her.

And finally, there was Kyungsoo. Plain, boring Kyungsoo, with his red hair and his dark green tail, with plump lips and eyes a little too big. Not exactly the kind of face that would attract a human to the waters. But at least he had a good voice. The thing was, however, that, as well as his little brother, he only liked to sing for himself. And maybe that was one of the reasons he failed to drown that young werewolf before. The whole time he was singing to him, seeing him approach the shore with a mesmerised expression on his face, something felt wrong inside of him. He didn’t like it. Singing was supposed to be something nice and intimate for him, and using it for that purpose just felt _wrong_. So maybe that was why he couldn’t do it. That, and of course, the fact that the werewolf wasn’t alone.

“So, how was this werewolf?” Seungkwan asked, taking Kyungsoo out of his own thoughts.

“What?”

“How was he? Maybe I know him,” he said, leaning his chin on the palm of his hands.

“Oh. Well, he was quite handsome,” Kyungsoo started mumbling. “You know, black hair, very dark skin…”

“Dark skin? I think I know who you mean,” the younger smiled. “There’s this pack that comes once in a while to hunt around the woods and stuff, and there’s the tanned guy that you say, and a very cute one—”

“Okay, whatever. Next time just give me a heads up before I approach any of those beasts,” Kyungsoo interrupted. He felt upset enough to not want to talk about werewolves for a while.

“Hey, don’t be bitter about it,” Jeonghan told him. “It’s not that much of a difference to kill a human than to kill a werewolf. I drowned one the other day and I didn’t even notice.”

“So that’s why the meat tasted so weird that time,” Hyejin muttered.

“Oh, shut up. You liked it.”

She just smirked. “Never said I didn’t.”

“Anyway,” Jeonghan rolled his eyes before looking back at Kyungsoo, “why did he resist you if he was in trance?”

“Because he wasn’t alone!” he finally let out.

“Oh dear,” Hyejin gasped, a hint of malice in her smile, “was he with the girl I saw?”

“What? No. It was a boy.”

“Another werewolf?” Jeonghan wondered.

“I don’t know? He looked normal. But again, I didn’t know the tanned guy was a werewolf, so what do I know. The thing is, he wasn’t affected by my singing. He stopped me before I could completely drown the wolf.”

“Really?” Seungkwan gasped. “What did he look like?”

Kyungsoo stopped to think. What did he look like, indeed. As the merman remembered it, he looked dumb. A dumb, tall human. He had brown and fluffy hair—probably even puffier than Seungkwan’s. And before he dived back into the water, Kyungsoo could see that he also had very, very pretty eyes. He had a pretty soul.

 

* * *

 

Chanyeol whined. “Come on, Jongin!”

“I said _no_ ,” his friend insisted, exasperated.

Since the lake incident, Chanyeol had been following him all the time, nagging him to go back to the lake to explore and see what the hell that thing was. And Jongin wasn’t going to let him. It was enough that he had been almost killed by whatever that was, but on top of that, Chanyeol had seen it. He had seen his claws. Thankfully, Chanyeol was too busy trying to pull his leg in that chaotic mess to notice that the claws belonged to him. So now, Chanyeol had been theorising about the _thing_. At first, he was absolutely worried because he told him that there was another person bathing in the lake—he actually told Jongin that he had looked at that person and that they looked quite close, but Jongin didn’t remember a thing—and he thought that maybe that strange beast had drowned that person or something.

But then Chanyeol remembered seeing a tail, and then started the theory that the person was actually a mermaid. Jongin thought it was nonsense until he told what happened to the pack. Their worried looks said most of it, really. That was why they decided to stay away from the lake, just in case. And right then, Jongin was on his way to meet Mingyu in a café on campus and tell him, since he wasn’t there when it happened. It was going to be funny. ‘Hey, so apparently there are mermaids in the lake we usually go to and one of them almost killed me, so we’re gonna avoid that place for a while’. The thing was that Chanyeol was following him and nagging him around 24/7, including now, and Jongin didn’t know how he was going to tell him.

As if he had the necessity to remind him, Chanyeol spoke again. “Well, I’m not going anywhere until you say yes. That, or I go alone to the lake, and if something happens to me it will be on your conscience forever.”

Jongin groaned as he entered the café. He looked around until he saw Mingyu sitting with his boyfriend in a table of the far corner, and he made a beeline to the table, Chanyeol following close.

“Hi!” Mingyu said, waving enthusiastically. When he saw Chanyeol behind Jongin, a confused expression clouded his face. “Uh… Hi?”

“Chanyeol, this is Mingyu and Wonwoo. Guys, this is Chanyeol,” Jongin said half-heartedly before sitting in a tired manner.

“Hey guys,” Chanyeol greeted, sitting beside Jongin.

“Hey,” Wonwoo said back, squinting his eyes before looking back at Jongin. “You didn’t tell us you were coming with a friend.”

“Well, I—”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Chanyeol interrupted. “I’m just trying to convince Jongin to do something with me. I really need his help.”

“Really? What is it?” Wonwoo asked. He actually didn’t look interested at all.

“Okay, so, the other day we went to this lake that is outside of town…” Chanyeol started. It made Jongin groan, slumping his head against the table, while Mingyu widened his eyes. “And everything was normal, and kind of cool, you know? But then this weird thing happened where Jongin started to behave like a zombie and he started to walk to the water and there was this weird animal, human thing? I don’t know man, call me crazy, but I think it was a mermaid. What happened then is that that thing started to drown him and I had to go and pull him out, but the beast got under the water again. So, I want to go there again to hunt it down or discover what it is or something. But Jongin is a pussy and he doesn’t wanna come.”

“Wow,” Wonwoo said, tone flat.

“I know, right?”

“You went to the lake?” Mingyu asked.

“Hmm, yeah, they invited me to come along… Um, where is the toilet?” As he looked at the direction where Wonwoo was pointing his thumb, he got up. “Okay, thanks. Be right back.”

When they saw him disappear behind the doors, Mingyu frantically leaned on the table. “Are you _insane_?”

“Yeah, that’s what I told Wheein,” Jongin said, tone tired.

“Who?”

“A girl from the sorcerer school. Look, Minhyuk brought people along because there was a ruckus on that school or whatever, I don’t know.”

“Oh, yeah… Soonyoung told me about that,” Mingyu mumbled to himself. “But he smells like a normal human.”

“He is,” Jongin affirmed.

“See? In the end it wasn’t so bad that you stayed with me instead of going, huh?” Wonwoo remarked.

“Well, anyway,” Jongin sighed, “I’m afraid what Chanyeol said it’s true.”

“ _What?_ ”

“I got lured by a siren or something and I almost died, yeah. I came to tell you we’re going to stay away from the lake for a while until we figure something out.”

“What the fuck,” Mingyu breathed, slumping in his chair, “I didn’t know mermaids existed.”

Wonwoo barked a laugh. “Babe, _you_ of all people shouldn’t be surprised.”

Mingyu squinted his eyes at him. “How come you’re not surprised? Did you know about them or what?”

“Well, yeah. I heard a couple of things in the goth bar.”

“Ugh.”

“What,” the vampire frowned.

“Of course it would be the fucking goth bar.”

“What do you want me to do? Go on a killing spree in the streets?” Wonwoo huffed.

“Well, no,” Mingyu mumbled, “but maybe you could… I don’t know…” he averted his eyes as a blush crept on his cheeks.

“Mingyu, I already told you,” Wonwoo said as he held his boyfriend’s hand. “I won’t drink blood from a single person if they can’t handle me. And I love you, but I can’t drink your blood. It makes me sick. Also, it doesn’t taste nice. You werewolves smell like wet dogs.”

“Hey, it’s not like you vamps smell like roses, you know,” Jongin interrupted, upset.

“Whatever, I’m just saying—”

“Guys!” a voice suddenly interrupted. “There you are!”

When Jongin saw Mingyu and Wonwoo groan in unison, he turned around to see the owner of that voice. Short, black hair, big eyes, about the same height as Wonwoo (maybe a little shorter, he noticed). He was holding some books and was approaching the table in an enthusiastic manner.

The vampire buried his face on Mingyu’s shoulder. “Please stab me with a stake to prevent me from this suffering.”

“No chance.”

“Who’s that?” Jongin asked, confused.

The guy got to the table and dropped his books there with a decisive look on his eyes. “Now I have _definite_ proof that they exist!”

“Hi, Seungcheol,” Mingyu sighed. “Have you met my friend Jongin?”

“Hmm? Oh,” he said as he turned around and looked at the other werewolf. “Hi, sorry. I’m Seungcheol.”

“Pleasure,” Jongin answered as he shook his hand with the other.

Right in that moment, Chanyeol came back from the bathroom, looking confused at the new guy at the table.

“Hey, Chanyeol!” Mingyu waved. “Meet my friend Seungcheol.”

“Oh my god, they’re gonna be BFFs,” Wonwoo whispered low enough for only Mingyu to hear. His boyfriend jabbed him in the ribs.

After they introduced each other, they sat on the table and had a small chat for a couple of minutes before Chanyeol pointed at the books with a curious gaze. “What are those?”

“Those, Chanyeol, are references I’m gonna use to prove that vampires exist,” Seungcheol replied.

“Woah, vampires exist?”

“There he goes again…” Mingyu sighed.

“They do!” Seungcheol exclaimed, defensive. “And this is _scientific_ proof,” he added as he tapped the books.

“Are you sure you didn’t get those from the fantasy section again?” Wonwoo wondered.

“That happened _one_ time!” he replied with a blush on his cheeks. “These books are from University researchers that have studied them. These are _facts_.”

While Mingyu and Wonwoo rolled their eyes, Chanyeol gasped in amazement. It was such a strange and funny situation, Jongin thought. It was unreal.

“So, how are vampires really like?” Chanyeol asked him, excited.

“Well,” Seungcheol grabbed one of the books and looked for one of the pages he had marked, “you know that thing they say about garlic? That isn’t true, garlic doesn’t affect them…” he commented as he read through the underlined paragraphs. That was accurate, Jongin noticed. Mingyu always complained about Wonwoo’s love for garlic bread and how much he hated to kiss him with that breath afterwards. But knowing Wonwoo, he probably did it on purpose to tease Mingyu. “Uh… Sunlight. Sunlight is _lethal_ for them…” That was fake. The only thing sunlight did was make them weaker, more ‘mortal’, to say it somehow (they were always _mortal_ , but wounds healed slower during the day). It irritated their skin, and it also made them sleep, which was the reason why Wonwoo yawned too many times. But being a university student, no one found that strange. “What else, what else… Oh! The thing they say in werewolf legends, that you can kill them with silver bullets? Actually, that’s not it. It’s for vampires.” Again, not exactly true. Werewolves _were_ affected by silver, as well as vampires. It was toxic for both of them, but in different ways. Vampires couldn’t touch it, werewolves could (silver inside their body, though? That was a different story). Besides, guns with silver bullets were extremely rare. Vampire hunters usually had silver daggers.

“Oh,” Chanyeol breathed, suddenly pensive for a couple of seconds before speaking again. “Do you think werewolves also exist then?”

Jongin and Mingyu visibly froze, and Wonwoo almost couldn’t hide his snort as Seungcheol looked back at his book. “Huh,” he said, pensive too, “I never thought about that.” Jongin had never wanted to smack Chanyeol as much as in that moment.

Finally, Wonwoo scoffed. “This is ridiculous,” he stated. “Seungcheol, vampires don’t exist. Stop chasing imaginary things and do something more productive with your free time.”

“Why can’t you guys believe me for once?” Seungcheol deflated.

“I believe you,” Chanyeol quickly added. “In fact, before you came here, I was telling them about this thing that happened the other day… Say, would you believe me if I said mermaids are real?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jongin muttered, threading his fingers through his hair.

Seungcheol then had his full attention on Chanyeol as he narrated their little incident of the other day. Excited, they started to exchange wild theories about what could be or couldn’t be real, what research they could possibly do. Wonwoo started to nag Mingyu, telling him he wanted to go because he thought stupidity could be contagious, and he was worried it could reach them. That made them bicker with the vampire, and as the conversation grew more intense and they focused all their attention to Wonwoo, Mingyu slyly approached Jongin.

“Say, how much time are we gonna be away from the lake?” he asked him in a hushed tone.

“I don’t know. Hongbin said he was gonna ask a hunter friend to take a look at the lake, but who knows how long that’s gonna take.”

“And where are we gonna hunt meanwhile?”

“I don’t know,” Jongin repeated. He sighed. Right in that moment, he wished things weren’t so complicated. But most of all, he wished his friend wasn’t so stubborn so he could let the mermaid subject go.

 

* * *

 

Hakyeon moaned against Taekwoon’s neck.

He’d been locked in the school for days, trying to figure out the mess Minseok made, taking care of the goddamn demons and making sure everything was safe before deciding to go home, because he’d been doing research in the library non-stop and he couldn’t find anything. He deserved a break. But the moment he stepped inside his apartment, Taekwoon had grabbed him and taken him to their bedroom, showering him with hungry kisses and needy hands that caressed his whole body. At first, Hakyeon was quite overwhelmed. He missed Taekwoon too while he was stuck in the school, but he thought it would be different for the vampire. Taking into account that he was centuries old, one would think that time passed differently for him, and some days wouldn’t be that much, compared to a human’s perspective. Apparently, Hakyeon was wrong.

Taekwoon had taken his shirt off and was now leaving sloppy kisses in Hakyeon’s jawline at the same time he traced with his fingers the line of the sorcerer’s abdomen, making him shiver. Hakyeon slowly took his face between his hands, and kissed him hard, deep, and long, until he had to pull out because he was out of breath. And even though vampires didn’t need air, he was also panting softly, and he gave a long look at the sorcerer’s body while he licked his lips, pupils dilated.

_Oh_. He was hungry, Hakyeon noticed. How long had it been since he fed? He didn’t remember exactly, but it couldn’t be long. Maybe it was the excitement of the moment? Could be. When Taekwoon started going out with him, Hakyeon took a great interest in learning vampire customs, and he didn’t like it when he found out that feeding was closely linked with sex for most vampires. Taekwoon assured him that it wasn’t his case, but Hakyeon, being the insecure young man he was, felt bad for weeks, thinking that maybe he wasn’t good enough for Taekwoon or that maybe he didn’t love him that much. Taekwoon didn’t want to feed on him because he was terrified of hurting him, but the night he saw Hakyeon crying because of it, he thought that biting him couldn’t be worse than seeing him like that. And it wasn’t. He’d always remember the fluttery heart of the sorcerer when he agreed to do it, nervousness palpable on his skin and ragged breath as he approached his mouth to Hakyeon’s wrist, and the little wince he made when the vampire bit the skin. When he saw that there was no real danger to it, Taekwoon stopped feeding on anyone else since then. And he discovered the so-known sexual connection feeding had that he hadn’t seen before then.

“Can I?” the vampire asked in a soft tone.

“Yeah,” Hakyeon breathed.

Taekwoon then sunk his fangs into the tender flesh of Hakyeon’s neck, making him feel a strike of pain and pleasure through his entire body, clutching his hands on Taekwoon’s shoulders. And Taekwoon felt exactly the same, too. He knew that because of the grunt the vampire let out the moment he bit him, the hardening of his cock that he felt even through the fabrics of their pants, and the two crimson dots that appeared suddenly in Taekwoon’s neck, exactly on the same position where he had bit the sorcerer. Hakyeon couldn’t help it. When he felt strong emotions he couldn’t exactly control the flow of his powers in his body, and being a voodoo sorcerer had those kind of downsides (or perks, depending on the situation).

“Ah, Taekwoon—”

“GUYS, I'M BACK HOME AND I HOPE YOU’RE DECENT BECAUSE I WANT TO TALK TO YOU!”

That was Jaehwan. _Ugh_. Hakyeon sighed, flopping his head on the pillow as Taekwoon let out an exasperated growl, leaning his forehead against Hakyeon’s shoulder.

“We’re in the bedroom,” the older said while looking at the ceiling.

Jaehwan then opened the door with a hand in front of his eyes at the same time Taekwoon sat beside Hakyeon. He took a peek between his fingers. “Oh thank god, you still have pants on.”

“What do you want,” Hakyeon asked, tone flat.

“Wow, no need to be so friendly,” Jaehwan said sarcastically as he sat on the mattress next to them. “I was just gonna ask you how’s it going with the demon thing.”

“A fucking nightmare, that’s what it is,” Hakyeon said as he ruffled his hair. “Maybe it would’ve been easier and I would’ve found something if I had a little help,” he pointed out as he stared at his friend.

“Hey, I told you before, I was busy those days…” Jaehwan mumbled.

“How was your date with Seokjin, by the way,” Taekwoon asked suddenly.

Hakyeon widened his eyes. “You had a date with Seokjin!?”

“I-it wasn’t a date!” Jaehwan squawked flustered, blush creeping on his cheeks. Taekwoon always knew what were his weak spots. “We just hung out, jeez.”

“Oh,” the older simply said. “And how was it?”

“Well,” Jaehwan started to fiddle with the hem of his shirt, “it was nice, for a while. But then we were eating ice cream and Hongbin appeared out of nowhere saying that he needed help.”

“What?” Hakyeon frowned.

“Yeah… Do you happen to know anything about mermaids?”

“Um, I think we did something in Knowledge of Creatures class… Why do you ask?”

“Apparently one guy from Hongbin’s pack almost got killed by one,” Jaehwan shrugged.

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah. He says he’s gonna talk to Wonshik, but maybe we should help too. You know how bold hunters can be.”

“Yeah, sorry, but I’ll pass. My hands are full with Minseok’s problem.”

“Aw, come on! Please?”

“Nope.”

“Taekwoon…?”

“No,” the vampire simply answered.

“Why not! You don’t have anything else to do!” Jaehwan exclaimed, upset.

“Jaehwan, you’re asking him to work with a _werewolf_ and a _vampire hunter_. I don’t know which one is worse,” Hakyeon said as he got up from the bed to open his wardrobe. He wanted to wear something comfier.

“Ugh,” he groaned as he flopped on the bed.

“Besides,” Taekwoon added with his soft voice, “you’re always telling me to go away when you invite Seokjin over. That means he’s not very fond of vampires either, and I’m sure he’ll help you since he was there when Hongbin asked you. Do you really want my help?”

Jaehwan sighed as he closed his eyes. That was true. All of Seokjin’s friends were either vampire hunters, or their lives had been ruined by them, or both. So no, Seokjin wasn’t a fan of vampires. He _hated_ them. Jaehwan was friends with Seokjin long before knowing Taekwoon, but he only discovered this fact when he had already befriended the vampire and Hakyeon had a stable relationship with him. So when he found out, he kind of had a panic attack. Hakyeon tried to calm him, saying that Seokjin never had to find out about Taekwoon. _He never had to find out_. That thought only overwhelmed and saddened Jaehwan, knowing that he could never be completely sincere with the person he loved most.


End file.
